Bathgate. Milo. Kubat. "House On The Hill"

Chris Bathgate and I have swapped 10 letters. Each letter has been about a single track from Audra Kubat's Mended Vessel...
Today, we wrap it up...

This song is called "House On The Hill."
Put on some headphones and listen along, as we ruminate....

Dear Chris
I'm not ready to leave this album. I have cherished each week, with a fresh opportunity to explore a new track of Audra's with you; it's also just been a treat to get back into letter-writing.



We have a lot of wrapping up to do, and that means my inevitable complimenting of you, on your first round of formal "album-review-writing..." We chatted by phone 11 weeks ago, already, (has it been that long?), discussing what you and I could do as a collaborative "review" project. And here we are, track 10 of Mended Vessel: "House On The Hill." I can't wait to hear your thoughts...

That lap steel guitar, how it sounds like a piano at points, (and there is a piano in there, buried), and Audra's acoustic strumming - how the former sounds like a ghost wind departing the horizon and the latter is simultaneously furtive and meditative at the same time... Forgive the superlative, because of course it's hard to say at this point having taken each song week to week, but this might be the most emotional vocal performance Audra has given us...something as poignant as suggesting she could have any lyric creak into a broken down cry, but it remains steeled throughout. "I just keep walking..." Let's just repeat that lyric, as she does in the song... It's rephrasing the album's thesis statement in a new way, again, but still reiterating what we've struck upon as its main theme: resolution. Or, maybe even, departing from your pain or departing from your regret, and continuing...

There are also lyrics about reaching and climbing... The idea of a house on a hill is something like a salvation, or an answer to anyone's all-encompassing prayers or hopes. But on a less grand, and more grounded scale, her hopes in this song is also to see someone, a lover, a supporter, a friend, any fellow, appearing in the doorway, (but the album ends on a bittersweet note, because whomever she's waiting for does not arrive...) The sweetness countering the bitter is that she will keep on walking...

There's something about the significantly airy time signature, the breezy melody, the fluttery-ness of its phrasing, that feels calming, a winding down, tucked-in, near-slumber song. Not a lullaby, though. Nothing on this album has been a lullaby, because lullabies, by design, have a bit of the fantastical, a bit of the false hope pour.... Every song here has been so realistic, the narrator so bluntly honest with herself... This album doesn't feel like it's necessarily a closure-album, or a pure catharsis album, but I feel like that closure is SO near, with the way she sings, and with what she deals with, like our singer is on this cusp of a revitalization, a salvation---like she's walking, and climbing, and reaching, and very, VERY near to that proverbial house on the hill..........

I feel restored...., or maybe rejuvenated by a song like this, in a way I can't explain. She's singing of tatters and scars, and yet, there is this propulsion to her... Walking it off... And potentially, hopefully...hopefully bettering a situation by surmounting the next obstacle. I feel hope.

Chris, I don't want the album to end, but it has. It's been a beautiful experience to explore it with you...
---with the best of vibes,
-jeff

Jeff,

I feel I need to start off with a hearty Thank You. It’s so enjoyable to correspond with you, and yes, its so nice to consider these letters. Part of my thanks comes from the sating nature of this experiment. Other than the obvious joy I get from waxing with you on Mended Vessel, this experiment served my outcry, my curiosity about the realm of music-writing, a realm you so gracefully embody. Perhaps an extra thanks is involved, for providing an opportunity and framework to write. Swift on the heals of those thank’s though is a heartfelt thanks to Audra herself. She volunteered her work for this experiment. I hope it doesn’t feel strange to address her in this message to you.  Perhaps I’ll write her a letter after this, and say my thanks "off the record".  And yes, we have a lot to wrap up, though I won’t pretend to be able to tie all the loose ends this process might have unstitched. Regardless, I’m quite taken by how much (and in what ways) your last letter says.

First though, this strange sound:

Now, just beyond the soft sparrow drift of that lap steel, after a few vocal lines of Audra’s, including her first iteration of “I stare at the doorway, hoping that you would walk through, but you don’t, no you don’t”, there’s a sound in the right channel. You can hear it the most prominently after Audra’s acoustic strumming softens; in the moments before the pedal steel adds a few nods to the preceding lyrics.  Jeff, am I loosing it? Do you hear this?  My first thought was there is a mouse in the piano.  As a person whose had one, a mouse in the piano, I’m predisposed perhaps to hear this sound as exactly that.  It wasn’t until I had begun to process the lyrics, after they set in, I began to hear that sound as a doorknob. Maybe I’m too deep in this album...

These climbing and reaching lyrics, I feel them. Also, your soft suggestion that the House on the Hill is an Idea, yes. I’m thinking of the House conceptually. The metaphor is there, I’m gonna let it be that, and the roads, stand metaphoric in this song. And yes, the person in this song's narrative never arrives. Your take on this song as one of “near salvation”, that vibe, is one I’m thoroughly enjoying thinking about.

Maybe it’s the withholding happening musically. I’m not positive, I don’t have a guitar on me, but it seems Audra sparingly lands on the 1 chord in this song, the tonic chord, the chord of this song's key. Psychologically, i think there’s resolution, safeness, comfort, in being inside that moment in the a chord progression, the tonic cord specifically. Audra practices restraint, perhaps, here.  That chord falls as the 2nd and 4th n the verse’s first two lines.  Meaning, we start hearing Audra’s voice singing above that, and come to rest in that comfortable tonic chord.  In the first few seconds of this song we can notice it as she sings the lines “on the hill”.  She brings us into that musical landing zone, she doesn’t start us there.

This song feels like the soft waving of a hand, there’s some indirect comfort coming from the music that pushes what could be a stark message into gentleness. I attribute this to the that slow whine from the lap steel, the gentle calamity of this songs fluid time keeping. The piano might help undo what could be harrowing curtains, reflecting the raggedness of the speaker of this song, but still fulfilling some requirement, even while tattered. A micro gesture, a image that reiterates what Audra has been saying all along, perhaps, in a different way.

This choral image, of one walking through the doorway, changes.  At first it’s “I stare at the doorway”, followed by “I STILL stare at the doorway”, and finally “I WONT stare at the doorway. It might be easy to consider this album a simple record in initial listens, but there are details across the board on Mended Vessel; This is one of my favorites.  Amazing, what changing or adding a single word can do semantically. It’s this lyrical progression that makes the line " I’ll just keep walking", seem more like a decision than a circumstance. There is agency in the word “won’t”.

This kind of matter of fact, scarred yet marching, post wound existence, is peppered throughout Mended Vessel, but this closing track, House on the Hill, feels perfect to close this album. There’s a comfortableness in this song, a comfort with having to triumph over the bumps and knocks of life.  Strange though, this definition of triumph, graciously, doesn’t exclude falling apart in moments. Or, maybe its more precise to say that this definition of triumph doesn’t minimize the fact that wounds and scars exist, currently, on those rising above, or moving beyond.

All the best Jeff, it’s been pure joy.
-Chris

Chris....I replayed the song with headphones. 

There is certainly something scurrying there. Call me crazy, but that supernatural sound makes this song now feel like a cliffhanger. What else was in the room with Audra when she made it? Was it a force, a being, something celestial? Was it benevolent? Or not? Was it a mouse? I feel like if we could only hear another song by her, then my now somewhat spooked-out feeling would be calmed. Gah!
.......it's probably a mouse...
And I can't wait for Audra to release a new song...

Also, I've gotten a chance to think, again, about this song. About the slight change of words. I realize that IF we consider the house/hill to be metaphorical, then Audra's actually diverting from the typical metaphoric conception of "a house on a hill" as some kind of salvation. She specifically refers to it as "House On THE Hill....." And, boy, such a difference that makes.

But ya know what? I'm gonna leave it there...
I've loved this. One of my most cherished writing experiences of my life.
sincerely
-jeff