Feb

21

Concerning Beasts of Seasons

Filed Under Updates 

As was mentioned here a few days ago, NPR’s First Listen is streaming Laura Gibson’s forthcoming (as of Tuesday, February 24th) and staggeringly beautiful record, Beasts of Seasons. Framed around Gibson’s acoustic guitar and her voice — a strange chimeric instrument, at once childlike and also serene and wise beyond its years — each of the nine songs carries what would otherwise be ordinary folksinger fare in surprising and complicated directions. An orchestra’s worth of instruments — banjo, horns, cello, musical saw, vibraphone, found sounds, piano, snatches of other voices — expands on her basic melodies and structures, articulating them into a powerful and evocative suite of songs that, like (I would submit) all great art must do, point away from themselves. Thematically framed around “Communion Songs” and “Funeral Songs”, her lyrics focus on, as she puts it in one place “[f]irst, reaching towards something outside of ourselves, be it a lover or God or family (Communion Songs) and second, grappling with the idea of ultimate aloneness and acceptance (Funeral Songs).” The final song, “Glory,” perhaps sums this up, an amazed and grateful recounting of her past, her childhood — things like her “father’s voice/dressed in anger/swollen with grace/my surrender/his forgiveness,” or her “sister’s belly/red and swollen/carefully swaying/carrying such grace” — and then, with her voice rising alongside a small, quiet choir, she tells us, singing, “I have never seen such glory since.” Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself, who is astonished at the sorrow and beauty and transcendence to be found when someone plunges themselves into the fact that it is not good that anyone should be alone.

Pre-order (or, after 2/24, just plain old buy) Beasts of Seasons direct from Hush Records, most likely the best way to get a little of your record-buying budget into her pocket; also keep FRIDAY, MAR 27 @ 9:30PM open, because Miss Gibson is coming to Moscow, playing at Mikey’s with Pablo Trucker.

Brendan occasionally guests on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most. He doesn’t blog, and doesn’t want to.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Concerning Beasts of Seasons”

  1. larson on February 22nd, 2009 3:56 pm

    Awesome article Brendan! I’m also really enjoying this record! Can’t wait to buy my copy at the show & get Laura to sign it!

  2. Stereopathic Music on March 17th, 2009 9:31 am

    [...] First, check out the Pitchfork review of Laura Gibson’s Beast of Seasons. In light of yesterday’s post, it’s actually a pretty good review. But I’m still completely stuck on the 7.2. On the 1-10 scale that makes it sound not good, but the review shows almost no negativity, engages the music and the words credibly, and generally sounds like it was written by a human. Anyway, who wants to score in the 8’s, if that’s where The Pains of Being Pure At Heart land? Check out Brendan’s review of Laura’s record here. [...]

  3. Stereopathic Music on March 19th, 2009 11:16 am

    [...] All Songs Considered loves Laura Gibson (as do we). They’ve done one of their Tiny Desk Concerts with her, they chose a collaboration she [...]

  4. Stereopathic Music on March 23rd, 2009 10:36 pm

    [...] here’s a brief review of Beasts of Seasons that we posted a few weeks back on the Stereopathic blog. My [...]

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