Wildfires, unbearable heat, torrential rains, warming oceans and super-strong hurricanes and typhoons, not to mention the malicious political machinations that pockmark daily life in much of the world—it’s insane, these days. And guess what? This week, scientists shared a startling discovery they made via the Hubble Telescope: a cosmic question mark. Even God, it seems, has no idea of what’s next to come for His creation.
As Birds of Play founder Alex Paul sings in “Breathe,” the penultimate song on the folk ensemble’s forthcoming Birdsongs of the American West album, “A world on fire/relentless greed/harrowed as our planet bleeds.” The next verse, though, points out that there is reason for hope: “But underneath/Everything/Endlessly/Life flows on with tenacity.” We may not make it through the mess we’ve made, but life writ large will march on.
The four-person group performs “wooden music,” aka acoustic songs, that flits from folk to bluegrass to jazz and back. In addition to Paul, who handles guitar and bass, the collective includes Jack Tolan on guitar and mandolin, Eric Shedd on bass, mandolin and guitar, and Anneke Dean on violin and guitar. They each step to the microphone to sing their own songs, with the others lending vocal support.
These are songs from heart, though they’re not uniformly about romantic entanglements. “Texture,” the lead-off track, sets the tone for the album: “If texture is the language of time/River carved canyons speak in eloquent rhyme/Rainfall the choir of a world intertwined/This land suggests something divine.” Another highlight is the Dean-led “Stargazer,” a gentle ode that flies high.
Too often these days, productions have become overly busy, with little or no space left between notes. But the best songs and performances, at least to these ears, breathe in and out, whisper and shout, and resonate not via the volume knob but the heart. Another Paul-penned song, “Aftermath,” is a good example of that—it finds a little light in the dark days of the pandemic. And Tolan’s “Numbers and Names” reminds us that our collective memories often leave out one constant: the natural world.
Slated for release on August 25, the 11-track album should attract the ears of music fans who, like me, have long enjoyed folk songs crowed around campfires, in coffeehouses and even from the grooves of oft-scratchy LPs. For whatever reason, midway through the album this morning, on what must be my 30th listen over the past few weeks, the music reminded of a Rosalie Sorrels house concert I attended in late 1985 in central Pennsylvania, when she sang songs of hearth, heart and moving on, of the world as it is and as it could be. Which is to say, hitch a ride with the Birds of Play. They’ll carry you far.
(The album can be ordered via the group’s website.)
The Old Grey Cat 