General Ratings:
Music: 7
Lyrics: 6
Scope: 5
Consistency: 7
RIYL: Seven Swans era Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Further Listening: Deer Tick, Laura Gibson, Lewis and Clark
Place of Origin: Austin, TX
Instrument/Sounds List: Acoustic Guitar, Male/Female Vocal Harmonies, Electric Guitar, Drums, Alternative Percussion (congas, shaker, foot stomps), Ukulele, Piano, Trumpet, Ambient Sounds, Whistling.
Mood Tones:
Season: Spring
Weather: Cool & Clear
Time of Day: Dusk
Song Highlights: Safe Travels, The Bonsai Tree, The Highway
Favorite Lyrics:
"God, I'm glad I met you/
Life was getting old/
But you like me,/
And my dark poetry/
And you're happy when it's cold." (from Holy Water)
"We wander through your city,/
We've traveled very far,/
We spend our hard-earned money at the bar./
We can't afford a taxi,/
We shouldn't drive a car,/
And tomorrow we return to the sea." (from Dear Old Robyn)
"How lucky to be/
So unusually free:/
You and me,/
Under the apple tree." (from The Apple Tree)
Other Thoughts:
For the most part, Peter & the Wolf is Red Hunter, a semi-nomadic Texan troubadour who made a name for himself in the Austin scene by playing shows in unconventional venues, like cemetaries and rooftops. And without reading too much into what's clearly an intentional, self-made mystique, there is an air of authenticity to P&tW's recordings that is absent from most of the fruit of the mid-oughts indie folk revival. Many of the songs appearing on Lightness are re-recordings, the originals appearing either on the band's first two CDRs (Peter & the Wolf and Experiments in Junk) or Alien Sun, the last record Mr. Hunter released under his given name. This stones-in-a-river technique was the bread and butter of most folk musicians before the advent of recording began casting the concept of any song's performance in stone, and coupled with the simplicity of arrangement, cleanliness of production and Red's well-chronicled itchy feet, it makes the record seem more like a road diary than the sequential capturing of performative pinnacles that most albums generally strive to be.
It's no coincidence then that the main subject matter of the album is movement, primarily across space, and that most of the songs feel like postcards ("Grey Overcoat" even ends with the phrase "You'd love it here/ I visit, but I can't stay"). I've often thought that the best way to listen to this album would be on a long train ride, looking out the windows as the towns roll by, or barring that, in the central leg of a roadtrip. This serial quality slices both ways, establishing a firm consistency of tone but undercutting the idea that any particular person, location or event in each song might have any special significance. To put it another way, we know that Red likes out-of-the-way, exotic places, but are left with the sense that all in all, one is as good as the next.
Also worth mentioning is the sheer tunefulness of most of the songs on Lightness. Gentle acoustic strums in minor keys are almost always accompanied by lush vocal harmonies, simple percussion and occasional, assiduous additional instrumentaion. While it's easy to get caught up in discussing the larger ideas of a record, here more than in most contemporary recordings, it's the basic melodies, not the production's smoke and mirrors, that will keep you coming back for more. Also, the spare way in which he chooses to orchestrate the songs lends each extra piece an air of intentionality and indelibility (cf. the trumpet on "Safe Travels" or the piano on "The Highway"), which is difficult to match when when blending more than three or four tonal parts.
The Downside:
None of the songs break the 4 minute mark, and many of them barely breach the 2. Taken as an album, this is practically meaningless, but in isolation, individual songs can feel insubstantial. This isn't aided by the fact that P&tW's formula is, as mentioned above, fairly simple and seldom strayed from. In the one instance when it is, the one-two punch of "Captain Dan" and "Black Saltwater," surprisingly agressive (and in the case of "Black Saltwater," nearly melody-less) cuts. They're placed toward the end of the album, after mood and tone have been clearly established and sustained, very nearly breaking the flow of the entire record, and I'm not really sure what Mr. Hunter is playing after by including them, as neither is particularly noteworthy. I almost always end up skipping them. On the other hand, what one person sees as maintenance of tone, another will see as a lack of ideas, and if you're the sort of person who highly values variation within a record, Lightness may bore you. For my part, I'm not sure how many listens it will take for something this pretty to seem pedestrian, but it's definitely a good deal more than I've given it.
Music: 7
Lyrics: 6
Scope: 5
Consistency: 7
RIYL: Seven Swans era Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Further Listening: Deer Tick, Laura Gibson, Lewis and Clark
Place of Origin: Austin, TX
Instrument/Sounds List: Acoustic Guitar, Male/Female Vocal Harmonies, Electric Guitar, Drums, Alternative Percussion (congas, shaker, foot stomps), Ukulele, Piano, Trumpet, Ambient Sounds, Whistling.
Mood Tones:
Season: Spring
Weather: Cool & Clear
Time of Day: Dusk
Song Highlights: Safe Travels, The Bonsai Tree, The Highway
Favorite Lyrics:
"God, I'm glad I met you/
Life was getting old/
But you like me,/
And my dark poetry/
And you're happy when it's cold." (from Holy Water)
"We wander through your city,/
We've traveled very far,/
We spend our hard-earned money at the bar./
We can't afford a taxi,/
We shouldn't drive a car,/
And tomorrow we return to the sea." (from Dear Old Robyn)
"How lucky to be/
So unusually free:/
You and me,/
Under the apple tree." (from The Apple Tree)
Other Thoughts:
For the most part, Peter & the Wolf is Red Hunter, a semi-nomadic Texan troubadour who made a name for himself in the Austin scene by playing shows in unconventional venues, like cemetaries and rooftops. And without reading too much into what's clearly an intentional, self-made mystique, there is an air of authenticity to P&tW's recordings that is absent from most of the fruit of the mid-oughts indie folk revival. Many of the songs appearing on Lightness are re-recordings, the originals appearing either on the band's first two CDRs (Peter & the Wolf and Experiments in Junk) or Alien Sun, the last record Mr. Hunter released under his given name. This stones-in-a-river technique was the bread and butter of most folk musicians before the advent of recording began casting the concept of any song's performance in stone, and coupled with the simplicity of arrangement, cleanliness of production and Red's well-chronicled itchy feet, it makes the record seem more like a road diary than the sequential capturing of performative pinnacles that most albums generally strive to be.
It's no coincidence then that the main subject matter of the album is movement, primarily across space, and that most of the songs feel like postcards ("Grey Overcoat" even ends with the phrase "You'd love it here/ I visit, but I can't stay"). I've often thought that the best way to listen to this album would be on a long train ride, looking out the windows as the towns roll by, or barring that, in the central leg of a roadtrip. This serial quality slices both ways, establishing a firm consistency of tone but undercutting the idea that any particular person, location or event in each song might have any special significance. To put it another way, we know that Red likes out-of-the-way, exotic places, but are left with the sense that all in all, one is as good as the next.
Also worth mentioning is the sheer tunefulness of most of the songs on Lightness. Gentle acoustic strums in minor keys are almost always accompanied by lush vocal harmonies, simple percussion and occasional, assiduous additional instrumentaion. While it's easy to get caught up in discussing the larger ideas of a record, here more than in most contemporary recordings, it's the basic melodies, not the production's smoke and mirrors, that will keep you coming back for more. Also, the spare way in which he chooses to orchestrate the songs lends each extra piece an air of intentionality and indelibility (cf. the trumpet on "Safe Travels" or the piano on "The Highway"), which is difficult to match when when blending more than three or four tonal parts.
The Downside:
None of the songs break the 4 minute mark, and many of them barely breach the 2. Taken as an album, this is practically meaningless, but in isolation, individual songs can feel insubstantial. This isn't aided by the fact that P&tW's formula is, as mentioned above, fairly simple and seldom strayed from. In the one instance when it is, the one-two punch of "Captain Dan" and "Black Saltwater," surprisingly agressive (and in the case of "Black Saltwater," nearly melody-less) cuts. They're placed toward the end of the album, after mood and tone have been clearly established and sustained, very nearly breaking the flow of the entire record, and I'm not really sure what Mr. Hunter is playing after by including them, as neither is particularly noteworthy. I almost always end up skipping them. On the other hand, what one person sees as maintenance of tone, another will see as a lack of ideas, and if you're the sort of person who highly values variation within a record, Lightness may bore you. For my part, I'm not sure how many listens it will take for something this pretty to seem pedestrian, but it's definitely a good deal more than I've given it.
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