Date: September 24, 2002 (release)
Release: Sub Pop #600
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Iron and Wine is the obscure name adopted by singer/songwriter Samuel Beam for his self-recorded, back-porch leaning, lo-fi, one-man band. As the story goes, someone with pull at Sub-Pop Records came across a free-CD sampler from a small music magazine featuring one of Beam’s songs. In un-characteristic music exec fashion, the guy fell instantly in love with Beam’s stripped down, lyrically compelling, Southern-folk flavored sound. Beam was soon tracked down in Florida (where he fittingly teaches cinematography at some unnamed university) and offered a record deal. After signing across the dotted line with one of the last great independent labels, Beam dutifully handed over two album’s worth of self-recorded songs.
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Date: March 6, 2001 (release)
Release: Astralwerks #29072
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Consistent with my post break-up habit of musical masochism, I’ve recently been over-playing Quiet Is The New Loud, encouraging its melancholy melodies to lodge themselves in my heart like salt on an open wound. Instead of letting my old punk records work their healing magic, I keep wallowing in the sadness of morbidly introspective artists like Nick Drake, Neil Halstead, and the Norwegian duo, Kings of Convenience.
Quiet Is The New Loud—it’s almost pathetic how perfectly this album title describes the dominant trend in my listening habits. As I get older, I’ve noticed the volume knob on my stereo progressively turning in the wrong direction (to the delight of my neighbors), even as the music itself has become gentler and more polite. Ten years ago I’d have trashed this record as unpardonably toothless and sissy-sweet, but now it strikes a chord. I’m not afraid to admit it—I’ve grown soft in my not-so-old age.
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Date: November, 1968
Release: Warner Brothers WS-1768
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When Astral Weeks was released in 1969, very few people got it. When I bought the record from a friend 13 years ago, I didn’t really get it either. In fact I wanted my money back. My friend promised that the album would grow on me if I’d just give it a few more spins. By the third listen, Astral Weeks had completely overwhelmed me with its raw emotional beauty. It has since ingrained itself deeply into my musical identity.
There really isn’t anything else quite like Astral Weeks — it was unprecedented when it came out and nothing has compared to it since. Even Van Morrison, for all his creative powers, never topped this early peak (although 1974′s Veedon Fleece comes close). Nothing written on Astral Weeks can ever truly capture its essence — the music speaks for itself. That said, writing about the album feels like one of the hardest things I could possibly do. Rather than try to rally my best adjectives and sing the album’s praises, I will avoid the standard drivel and, as Van sings, “venture in the slipstream.”
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Date: 1974
Release: POLYDOR
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Veedon Fleece is a deeply personal album that marked Morrison’s return to the stream of consciousness and raw soul power of 1968′s Astral Weeks. It was recorded around the time of his divorce from Janet Planet, the same woman to whom he had dedicated the passionate love songs of 1971′s “Tupelo Honey.” This album is emotionally wrenching, a powerful statement on love gone bad. The melancholy mood of Veedon Fleece compels the listener to enter the singer’s world of heartbreak. Though occasionally verging on the depressing, there is such immediacy and honesty in the music that you can’t help but feel alive after a listen. Spare and subtle moments abound, such as “Fair Play,” “Streets of Arklow,” and “Country Fair.”
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Date: February 2, 1999 (release)
Release: Polygram #556074
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A heap of wrinkled laundry led me to discover Wes Anderson’s 1998 film, Rushmore, as well as its soundtrack. I had graduated high school a year earlier and was back at home after my first year in college, ironing in front of the television (what else to do in the ‘burbs on a viciously humid July afternoon? It seemed obvious at the time…), when I stumbled across a movie on cable that was visually and musically unlike anything I’d seen in all my young life. So there I stood for an hour and a half, transfixed and ironing as Rushmore transported me back to the weird time that was high school in songs and images.
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