I went to the woods once. Way back in 2006. It was raining, and I stepped in moss; but it was nice. I met a bear. And I met my wife. And while the bear betrayed back when the housing market crashed in ‘08, my wife and I still think longingly of those times; “if only there had been a perfect woods-based soundtrack to those fateful days,” we often say to one another at the dinner table, where we we no longer leave a third place set for the bear. Little could we have known that nigh on 12 years later, the perfect woods-themed soundtrack would come around the bend in the form of North-Carolina-based guitarist Sarah Louise’s debut on Thrill Jockey.
Louise’s new album is called Deeper Woods, and while it maintains many of the textures of her previous works, it also signals a major shift for her toward a more prominent featuring of her voice. Where up until now she’s made her name drenching listeners in sheets of 12-string mastery, Deeper Woods finds her importing layers and layers of warm vocal accompaniment into music that evokes the deep green shadows of the North Carolina woods she calls home. The recently-released single “The Field That Touches My House and Yours,” finds her voice weaving through spare instrumentation, like a breeze through those trees that I saw when I met my ex-bear-friend and my current-wife-friend. Listen below and feel for yourself the feelings I must have been feeling back when I first felt those feelings.
Deeper Woods is out on May 11th via Thrill Jockey. Pre-order it here and ask yourself (as I have many times), “could you forgive a bear who sold you a subprime mortgage?”
[Visit full site to view media]Deeper Woods by Sarah Louise
Deeper Woods tracklist:
01. Bowman’s Root
02. When Winter Turns
03. The Field That Touches My House And Yours
04. Pipevine Swallowtails
05. Up On The Ridge
06. On Nights When I Can’t Sleep
07. Fire Pink And Milkweed