Chris Bathgate and I are collaborating on an album review.... We're trying out something different, for this... And I'm excited, because I, just like you, probably only (or mostly) know Chris for his songwriting... He's taking on my role here: The album we're reviewing is Mended Vessel, by Detroit's renaissance woman in the modern art of folk music and performance: Audra Kubat. Chris and I wanted to share all of the thoughts, emotions, and evocations that this album triggered in each of us, while we spent the last late autumn of 2016 listening to it... So we wrote letters to each other about each song.
Part 1.... "The Bells"
Dear Chris,
The sun is setting on an unusually warm winter day, and I'm starting in to Audra Kubat's Mended Vessel. The lead track, "The Bells," is a quiet, crackling opener, the arrangement seems to have a lot of space between the strums of acoustic guitar, the minimalist percussive clacks, the more atmospherically bent electric guitar, and what sounds like a moog of some kind, purring its oscillations below. (Perhaps your ears will decipher this intonation's source better than I...). But the energy is a simmer, something that's hushed but affects the sense and anticipation that it could elegantly erupt at any moment.
When Audra sings about hearing the bells, she's at a moment where she's "trying to keep above water," but fatigue is setting in... She hears the bells just as salvation seems to be drifting away from possibility, and yet, these bells are "just what (she) needed to hear..." It's an excellent way to start out an album: a call! A calling to her! It's compelling when she talks about breaking from her past behavior of building up a wall around her, and instead has an epiphany for herself, that it's "time for a revival." The Bells are "just what we needed to hear..."
Curious for your take on this track
sincerely--
-jeff
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Jeff,
I’ve heard about the joyful yet concerning weather in Michigan. Northern California is under heavy rains, and the gusts of wind don’t detract as I sit down to listen to Mended Vessel myself. I feel this same sense of hushed anticipation you describe on the “The Bells”. I can’t help but thank her dramatic delivery early in the verses, in concert with the early image of one drifting, struggling. I agree with you, I feel it, a call! After the declaration it's "time for a revival", the chorus moves to include us, “what we needed to hear”, then to the hopeful: the dawn chorus of birds encourage, a single word seems to liberate. This call seems to allow different meanings to inhabit it throughout the song, or at least, veil it.
There is a mirroring grace in this song's melody. This hushed feeling is enhanced by the melodic fall at the end of each line of the verse. The musical lift at the head of the chorus leads to a hyper awareness of this moment “I head the bells they were ringing out”. Right as the bells take focus, the image becomes the center of both her most emphatic delivery and the actual highest notes sung. While I think the story telling and metaphor are the show in “The Bells", I think the melodic architecture and supporting composition are of note to this feeling of a call. The subtle climbing drones, 1/3 back beat, the synth, all feel unobtrusive to Audra’s voice. As I continue onward through her album I am seeing that voice reflect something inherent in this albums title, as I learned from your interview with her, and the second track. An honoring of her experience, her grandmothers, and even ours.
Your own album is going to be out soon! Are you getting anxious? What predominates your emotional silo, when something like this gets near... Be it an album release, or a "big show" or a tour, is it eagerness? Is it dread? Is it relief?
I can tell you, not to divert too much from the song we have to discuss ("Tear Out Your Eyes,") that the energy I detected from Aurda Kubat when I spoke with her a week before the release of Mended Vessel was something akin to a quiet transcendence. She seemed to have come out of a chrysalis--as this album had been gestating for four years, and she'd gone through it three times, only to finally discover this perfect span of time, circumstances, and collaborators, to create the album she'd been hoping to make--all along.
"Tear Out Your Eyes" sounds like a singer who has nothing to lose. And I don't mean that in the typical cliched sense. I mean that her voice, and the rather brutal phrasings she's employing for her expression, sound as though they're coming from someone who's been over a mountain; an unforgiving mountain. There's a bit of realistic/existential/resoluteness to the revelation of this song. I know this isn't what she is going for, but tearing out ones eyes is a startlingly profound way for me to imagine gaining a new perspective. Or, perhaps, to use another cliche - dropping the proverbial scales from ones eyes.
After working on her craft for 20+ years, Audra does not have any illusions. There is no mirage that her eyes can see. And this goes back to how raw, beautiful--yes, absolutely beautiful--but also raw, this whole album is. Beautifully raw. Tender. Vulnerable. Scars revealed from sleeves having been rolled up. "Love is too tired..." is a phrase that sticks out... That love, this thing that we give a sanctified power to (...thanks, Beatles), can actually be exhausted, is a sobering thought to consider.
But atmosphere, let's talk about that. I love the ghostly purr of that guitar, the way it bends-- not the acoustic guitar, but the quiet electric... And we have to reiterate her sense for dynamics, the way her voice gets fuller, and louder, and yet kind of breaks in a way, when she hits the chorus. The way you can hear thick, strong oak trees creaking with fragility when a wind storm comes through? And how that stops you, to consider how this big, bone-like, trunked organism could sound as though it might break, might snap....despite how majestic and mighty it may appear... that sums up this song, and Audra's sung sentiments... for me....
That's all for now, Chris
We have one more song ot go
talk soon
---jeff
Howdy Jeff,
It’s all of those: eagerness, dread, and eventual relief. It’s more as well. Perhaps I also feel some sort of paternal pride. Though, I have to admit my mental sights are set on whats next; I’m already in the throws of something new. My tinges of album publishing energy feel more like an undercurrent, rather than oppresively governing me. Now, the thing that has yet to happen, a show, THE show, fills my emotional windshield. That eagerness is very present currently..
Quizzically, it's no shock that you witnessed Audra in “quiet transcendence”. I’m uncertain if the matter of factness of Tear Out Your Eyes (currently pouring out of my headphones) makes that sound logical, or if speaking to Audra in person recently gave me some flash of what you experienced. Maybe Mended Vessel itself was in the chrysalis, though metaphorically a chrysalis might rule out the necessity of failure. We have to uncover so many dead-ends before we see our successes. We have to record instruments to find out they don’t belong in a song. I wonder how many sentences we’ve deleted from these letters while in process. To paraphrase Emerson, failures are preparations for success. It’s a shame that the word failure feels, and perhaps is, pejorative. And maybe that word makes it feel like a process has ended. Scrapping a record twice, that feels more like brave quality control to me. I can’t deny her interview responses though, sometimes the art waits on the artist.
There is a stark, shocking, unapologetic timbre to Audra’s voice on “Tear Out Your Eyes", as you’ve said, with nothing to lose. Souls as lined up paper dolls, the crying trees, walking to the ocean, these images get us there. This song has no qualms with its own darkness. I truly feel this resoluteness you speak of, but it feels as though that information comes only from her vocal delivery, and is transmitted indirectly. While lines like “Is it god that you’re bowing to, or is it your fear, either way you cannot win”, do point me to existentialism and realism–a profound combination. That rawness, and I’m in full agreement when you say “Beautifully raw”, is something that has gripped me across Mended Vessel as well, a purposeful vulnerability. Though, this specific song's lyrics, accomplish a very specific kind of rawness, that feels shellac’d into us, by this morose and, again, nuanced arrangement.
These electrics, whether they are slide guitar or lap steel, deliver a kind of mournfulness that embodies a slightly different emotion than Audra’s vocals. The design of their melodies are transcendent in their own right. This instrumental section at 2:21, the call and response in the stereo field, is a totally cathartic wash over me moment. The left ear singing into the next chord, the right ear repeating this sorrowful melodic shape, is the sleeper-hit moment, for me on this record. Just that little break, its math, reaffirms and adds something ineffable to “Tear Out Your Eyes”. I can’t let this letter close without mentioning the understated organ. So simple, yet potent. I wonder, if we in a way are programed to hear organ, organ like this, as sacred. Perhaps my own early days of church going are causing me to inject my experience onto this song, but it ads an element of bereft, solemn ceremony. We learned early on, the production decisions made by Audra and her team have honored and created subtly and nuance. This songs choral line, “If love is too tired and the pain is too fierce, let the tide come and wash you clean” is one I’m fascinated with. What seems to be a solution, or perhaps a resolution, does not attempt to undo the trespass that perhaps caused us to seek solace in the first place. Maybe this is another gesture of Audra’s “realistic/existential/resoluteness”. As though we can’t change the things that have happened to us, or that we’ve had to bare, but we can find rejuvenation in other ways, without undoing, to let the tide wash us clean.
The ending lines of this song, so far, are my favorite closing lyrics, across mended vessel.
“Then I saw her on the shoreline, a starfish in her hand, she looked up at me and she smiled. She pointed toward the setting sun, as a flock of birds blocked the moon, and in the stars she traced the word: Dream”.
The impact of that language is slightly on the edge of sense, you feel it before you try and understand it. I have to note that the sparseness the song traverses just before this closing line is delivered, is further proof of intelligent design in this songs production. At 4:00 minutes, the acoustic guitar takes a rest, the organ drones on, a light tambourine is in the distance, and every part of the song steps back to let the word “clean” ring out, in solitary significance.
So, as I reported in yesterday's post: singer/songwriter Chris Bathgate is writing a review of Audra Kubat's 'Mended Vessel...' I'm joining him in this, as I think a collaborative album review, a true dialogue with music, is something long overdue and worth attempting... I'm eager to see what we render from these writings... Bathgate is in California, so he and I steadily writing letters to each other, diving in and digging around inside of each song, letter by letter... track by track... While you're here, I have to tell you that you have an opportunity to see Ms. Kubat perform on Saturday night (more info here) ***From here on out, the letters between myself and Mr. Bathgate will be posted every Tuesday, so we'll see you again on the 14th for a song called "September..." Meanwhile, here's track 2: "Mountain Woman"
Part 2: "Mountain Woman"
Dear Chris,
Indeed..., I've heard some strange, and actually troubling things about the powerful storms you've had in Northern California. Stay safe! And..., yes, thermometers are still disconcertingly high around here, in Michigan. Spring's pretty much here.
I wonder, can you tell how much a song means to a musician just by listening to it? An album is always, in theory, 10-equal parts (sometimes 11), in that it's a collection of songs, of statements. But this one, even as a second entry, already evokes an elevated significance in, above all, her voice.
I feel like we'll be talking about her voice in each of our letters. That voice is something like a gale, or a wave, or some organic-yet-not-quite-categorized ambiance you'd hear winding its way around oak trees and idyllic hills. I think that last sentence is suggestive of where this song sends me, in my mind, the visuals it manifests, and the way her voice can go from a whisper to a full throated intonation inside one note...!!
And something about the guitars, the harmonization of a more furtive and fleet cascade over a steadier pluck ringing out just every four measures or so. But those lyrics, looking back with reverence to an elder, with reverence to a lifestyle, an environment, that may be long-gone, or perhaps just so unknowable to many... It continues something from the first song ,that sense of seeking, seeking inside this frame of a lyrical story about a woman who helped raise her, a renewal of strength. I can hear how important this song is... Are any of your songs ever more important than others?
cheers,
-jeff
~~~~~~~~
Dear Jeff,
Funny how the weather doesn’t feel so much like small talk these days.....
This thing you’re wondering about, if you can deduce a measure of value through a performance or recording. I think in some cases I could argue: in a recording, you can tell how much a song meant to its performer at the time. Though with the subject matter of this second track, “mountain women", a narrative so strongly connected to the album title “Mended Vessel", I would wager that the feeling behind this song has and will be sustained in Audra.
In regards to her voice, I also can draw similar visuals from it. All of these images you use: gales, waves, winding, movement is what brings these to mind. It’s clear Audra’s vocally has prowess and nuance–of motion. There's proof of this in moments like the soft tailing decrescendo of the word “woman” in the tag line, in the impossible fading delivery of s on the word “pockets” just before the bridge, or the casualness with which her voice gallops upon the word “Californ-aye-eh”.
I might have a bias in my adoration of this song, its content, its mission. As an ex-pat who recently moved to an off-grid truffle farm in the wooded mountains of Northern California I can find intersections between this songs protagonist, the conditions of her life, and my landscape. The Narcissus we have in the vases (picked on the mountain) were planted by homesteaders who settled here in 1880. The remains of ancient wood stoves peak out of the star thistle. It feels as though there are echoes of this mountain woman's world(s) in mine.
It’s so nice to come into an album with a description of a feeling, followed by the inspiration of a feeling. Again, I’m seeing Audra the architect, framing our view of this narrative through “The Bells”. We’ve come from floating in isolation to a jeweled homage. Of all the jewels presented: strength, courage to love, self-sufficiency, Audra saves the best for last. She pins it so subtly, which seems an important move in considering the real estate given to the idea. Healing, healing is admirable.
The ability to heal can be passed down. Healing is in the blood. I feel like I have some footing here as this second track closes. I’m wondering what’s next. I feel like I’ve been brought the keyhole. I have the image of salvation, and survival already knocking around my brain, I’m wondering where I will go next.
To answer your question, yes. Though, that spotlight of value is dynamic. I’m wondering the same of Audra as we press forward.
This is a song called "Loving Arms" by Audra Kubat. It's the fourth track on Mended Vessel, which came out last last year. This....is a continued correspondence, between myself here in Detroit and singer/songwriter Chris Bathgate, who's writing to us from the mountains of northern California. I have to reiterate how excited I am to be experiencing, along with you, the first actual album review penned by Bathgate. Likely the first of more to come...
Hey Chris We had the 4th Annual Hamtramck Music Festival here recently... You remember the ol' Blowouts, yes? I have to say, coming from that explosion of live music, the avalanching-lineup of bands, to then sit down and write a letter to you, sir..., makes me feel a little wistful, so consider this a Wish You Were Here type of postcard, in letter form...
I think that the Track 4 position is crucial. Track 3's are usually singles. Track 1's are always powerful. Final tracks' are emotional, or, hopefully...conclusive. Track 4, as I've perceived it, is free to be a wildcard. It is the opening of Act II. The mannerisms are laid down, the aesthetic's veil has been drawn across the soundscape... The tone is set. We're listening to "Loving Arms," now...
Things pare back here. After the comparative energy of the first three, this one feels like the hush of entering a backroom, something the size of a cellar maybe, where a door shuts securely behind you shunting out any cacophony. It's Audra and her guitar, and she's being very honest with herself in front of you... This song, almost more than the first three, demonstrates what I consider to be the album's most winning quality: a fearlessness to be vulnerable. We've also talked about how this album's theme involves "searching..." be that externally or internally. In this song, she comes to a peace with the possibility, however scary, that she may not find the "place" she's been looking for... But why is she comforted in that confession? Because she's got this love that she's singing about...a love that takes her in her arms...
Even then, after she returns to a state of questioning herself, all the while cognizant of the fact that a lingering dizzy of questions would mean the loss of some other opportunity... Maybe the opportunity at love? I want that opportunity. I want arms around me comforting me the way she sings it here... Similar to the way I want my own kind of "Sunday Kinda Love" when I hear Etta James sing it...
Also, what is that coming in at the end? An accordion? Talk about that, Chris, and what that sound, the way it feels like a gravelly kind of breath or sigh....what it adds to the final chorus!......
more later my friend -jeff
"You know I have a pre-disposition for songs that develop over time, songs that move into fullness"
Hey Jeff,
I do remember those ol’ Blowouts, I'm glad to hear you’re immersed in music. Thanks for the sentiment of your post card wistfulness, the feeling is mutual. I wish I could teleport back and forth. It’s been a super strange week up here on the mountain, we’ve gone from 6 inches of snow at 2,000 ft to 65 degrees and sunny. The pile of firewood is currently lying fallow.
On Loving Arms I see and feel this 2nd act as well. The sparseness of this songs opening, the roomy tones of a far placed mic, and Audra’s potent and silky voice reinforce, for me, these thoughts you’ve shared about powerful vulnerableness. I hear in the first moments, in this purpohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCODcuOx978seful confession, lines delivered in a tone that makes me believe them to be truth. It makes me have to check myself. I think that’s a thing I experience when I witness vulnerability, I have to look inward to see when and if I have the capacity for that bravery.
I’m entranced by this songs soft build, which has to do with this accordion you’re wondering about…culminating in the feeling of being surrounded by the time the guitar slows to its gently windfall exit.
You know I have a pre-disposition for songs that develop over time, songs that move into fullness. The ethereal gossamer wash rising up beneath Loving Arms gives me a “let go” feeling. Maybe its because I feel surrounded, wrapped even. The effect of this kind of arrangements is super enjoyable for me, it helps me integrate the song into my own life. This song has that design. Like you’ve waxed, the stark small room of this songs opening is opened by a gossamer ethereal wash that rises out the corners in the 2nd verse. The entrance of the accordion at 2:03gives me goose bumps, and draws me deeper in to the atmosphere this song grows into. The song’s rounded summit drops just after the last chorus, the guitar slowing as it exits.
Like a perfect breeze, just for moment, this fourth track on Mended Vessel is felt in its absence just as much as in its presence.
- Chris
Listen to a live recording of this song from about five years ago, here
_______________________________________________
Hopefully you're still reading...
Because I still have Audra Kubat-related news to share... The Gaelic League Irish American Club of Detroit will host an event co-coordinated by Kubat to advance the Women’s March on Washington’s “10 Actions / 100 Days” campaign...
On Wednesday, March 22, local musicians will come together to share songs of peace and protest. Attendees can not only enjoy the inspirational performances of the artists listed below, but they can take action: blank postcards, writing utensils, addresses, and example letters will be provided. The organizers ask guests to bring several stamps to share. There will be light snacks and a cash bar. Click here for more info, and check out the lineup below.
I really wish I would have selfie'd a photo of Chris Batghate, Audra Kubat, and I....while we were convening in Roosevelt Park to talk about any ol' music-related thing that came to our minds. It was very good, very refreshing..., to finally have the three of us meet in person. Singer/songwriter Chris Bathgate and I have been sharing letters, digitally, across 2,000 miles. I was in Detroit, he was somewhere in Northern California. All the while, we've been dedicated each letter to a single track from Detroit-based singer/songwriter Audra Kubat's late 2016 release, 'Mended Vessel...' This is the 7th installment, discussing a song called "Sparrow"
Chris,
Your last letter kinda blew my mind. Or maybe all of these letters are, collectively, starting to blow my mind? Because, as I'd intimated earlier, the exercise of reviewing a work of art will inevitably stretch you toward a place of self-examination as well, or at least it should! This, of course, opens up a can of worms for some who might enjoy the debate of: 'Well, if you wrote a bad review of a certain album, then maybe the problem's with YOU and not the album...' I'm not ready to engage in a tumble down that certain rabbit whole quite yet. In my experience, most of the snarky or "bad' album reviews are reviews written in haste, or under deadline, and that expediency hampers one's consideration. Then again? How long does any/every piece of art need, when it comes to the time an audience should take to digest it... Questions for a future debate.
This review, however, is one that is giving us ample time, exceedingly more time, to take everything in. And I shouldn't gloss over the fact that I say "us," because 99% of all reviews are from a single voice, a solitary mind, a solo writer who presumes to speak for everyone in the realm of interpretation. But I have you, Chris, to bounce ideas off of... I'm delaying, we should really get into "Sparrow..."
This might be the sparest arrangement, yet. Although, we have to remark upon the power of that cello that comes in around 2:29. We're seven tracks into this album, so I don't think I'm speaking too soon when I say that her vocals throughout the bridge, right at 2:30, as the cello carries her voice singing "I don't want to hold onto anything anymore..." that THIS might be the most poignant, most powerful moment of the album for me. There's something about the tones she's hitting, the strings she's plucking, the timbre of it all has a feeling of a sprain, or a healing wound. This whole album has seemed to me to be about healing. There have been quiet contemplation about love, about upbringing, about ancestry, about location. But this song is about what, if anything, we can truly possess.
Anxiety is a killer, as the opening lyric demonstrates. What will hurt us, what can we actually stop from hurting us? What do we allow to hurt us... What can we do to stay strong? This song, to me, is about acceptance. Accepting complexity, accepting the whimsicality of life. Acknowledging what's permanent, like the stars, or like water.., and what is impermanent, like love. This song is about finding control in letting loose. That's what I think, anyhow. And it has to be reiterated, the production we've discussed so far, the tender, careful, tasteful adornments of things like that cello, or what also might sound like an organ to me (your ears might pick it out better than mine...)
And what an image to close out on. Greeting a destructive fire with your head held high..., as her voice quivers into a soft fade upon the dissipating guitar...
I hear the Governor of your state just declared the 5-year-drought to be ending... How is your Spring, out there, so far?
sincerely -jeff
----
Jeff,
Spring in California is all blooms at the moment. We’ve got a little more rain and cool snaps on the horizon, but overall, there’s been plenty of afternoons with doors wide open and the dogs asleep in porches scattered sunspots.
Thank you, in regards to the last letter. I’d say the feeling is mutual, I’m in such a good place with you framing these tracks, and providing your insights for me to grapple with and add to. I agree, that conversation–that wormhole of the responsibility of the critic, or perhaps even the audience in general–is too big a conversion for this platform. I have to acknowledge if our time was limitless we’d be able to dedicate to a near endless correspondence on topics of that girth.
To “Sparrow” then,
The sparseness of this song serves it well. And yes, I too feel this healing wound. Lyrically, the last word of this first verse’s first line, “Again”, adds such an intense and direct history for the speaker of this song, and immediately pointed me there. So subtle, yet so potent. The paused, gentle finger pick of Audra’s guitar leave those words ending her lines exposed, drifting off over the chords momentary dip into silence. This songs imagery fills me with these feelings of desperate want, against a current moment, “with the tide”. The circuitous nature of these images and metaphors in sparrow create a complex series of feelings in me. There is pain, but there is acceptance. “Sweet love it passes like water through these hands, and the more you try to hold the sparrow the further that it flies away.” is my favorite line of this song. While, that image of water through the hands isn’t necessarily a new one, but pairing it with the sparrow make it so new. Using the image of the hand, or holding, for both of these metaphors is wonderful to encounter.
Like you, I’m also feeling compelled to mention this moment at 2:30, the bridge. The minor vamp here is super successful, but via the context created by Audra’s chord changes right before (and at the end of) this section. As if a furrow of sadness has been drawn between the green sprouted rows of acceptance. This musical and emotional lift is intelligently paired with the image of the sparrow flying off. Suddenly, we’re inside these dark chord, perhaps as result of the sparrows departure.
As we move through, the sea and tide imagery lift us momentarily. And yes, this image of fire, preceding the final chorus, is on the edge of sense almost, but somehow in its strangeness, conveys volumes.
I love the moments of nuance across this tracks production, the string arrangement in the bridge in particular. It’s structure of harmony only really widening after the word “changed”. So subtle, so potent. Which i feel could be said about Audra’s voice across this record, Mended Vessel. until next week, -Chris
This is the 8th letter traded between singer/songwriter Chris Bathgate and I, as we share our professional, tangential, conversational, contemplative thoughts, considerations, and appraisals of Mended Vessel, --an album released last autumn by Detroit-based singer/songwriter Audra Kubat. We're nearly done with Mended Vessel... But after that, we can look forward to new music from Mr. Bathgate: Dizzy Seas comes out on Quite Scientific, May 10.
This song is called "Crystal Screams..."
And our letters got a bit intense...
Hello once again, Chris
April and October are magical months for me, and I know I'm not alone in that appraisal. It's the true dawn and true twilight periods of the year, whereas the green is coming back and the luminescence of our daytimes extends during this month, you can still see it battling against the hibernational browns and grays lingering from winter.... Same with October, as the crimson and yellows come in to splash against the summer's green - I'm just taken with how both of these months feel like two bottled seasons, tempesting-in-veritable-teacup of 30-ish days.
That poetic rambling has noting to do with Audra Kubat's Mended Vessel.... OR DOES IT? Even just to consider the artwork for this album, which we haven't quite done yet...the flipside, behind the tracklisting, is similar to the front cover, in that half-plate b/w tintype (by Allan Barnes), where the edges are a stark darkness, and Audra's aura has a supernatural luminescence about it. I imagine how, in Spring, we return to our gardens or we tend to a corner or facet of our abodes, and we repair them, or rehabilitate certain areas of our habitat from whatever damage was done over the unforgiving winter's whims....
And I think about Mending the proverbial Vessel... How this album is always halfway to healing, and how there's a sober assessment of what is and what is not, an actual cure to the ails and trevails of living, just living... So, that balance of wither-and-renewal, makes this feel like an excellent April/October record.
"The Bells" feels like morning, "Mountain Woman" feels like that perfect sun-soaked mid-morning period, "Loving Arms" and "Kalkaska" are also radiant, but I'm afraid that we may be entering one of the more (if not most) darker (darkest) songs on the album... This is the dark night of the singer's soul; the lyrics are not mincing anything, there is no sugar coating, we're dodging moonlight in a run that feels desperate through a night where the color is fading... All of the intensities crash into us within one verse, the tables are turning, we are hit by a snowdrift, we are lost in a desert, we are "on fire..."
.... I want to be most careful with this song, even more than the previous seven, so as not to misread it's signature expressions of distress, nor would I want to put a positive spin on it. There are so many things that likely keep you and I up at night, but the weight of that wondering of: "When will we be found...?" We can read that seven different ways, it would just depend on the mood you and I are in...We've talked a lot about how lyrics and mentioned a sort of searching, something that we are searching for...but this song seems to ask about who is out there, what is out there, searching for us.
I'd love to hear your interpretation of what a crystalline scream is!?
A couple of final things to mention - We were so excited about that pedal steel in "Kalkaska..." NOW...HOW haunting is it? I also like that there are moments, under her vocals, where you can almost barely hear the guitar - like it's a resting heart rate. And then we have that...mandolin...? that occassionally crashes in, along with that piano. It's another example of how the subtlety of arrangement can express an augmented emotion.
But... there is hope. I am twirled between woefulness and restored will, when she paints us a picture of those rivers rolling out to the sea... She's looking at the natural world and then applying her analysis of it to her own being... "I will survive..." too, just like the rivers rolling on...
Oh, last thing... Talk about those "Hey, hey, hey's..." The first few times it's just a percussive effect she can do to curtain the verses, but after the bridge, she throws emotion into it, like she's talking to herself, sternly, but with love... "Hey..." Like, "Hey...," calm down, settle, refocus. Hey. The way we all stop ourselves.
And I'll stop right there... I've prattled on too long to get to address how she mentions her parents often in these lyrics. I'd love for you to fill in that gap - as I realize, now, that it is rare that I get to hear songwriters talk about their family and personal history so openly.
Until next time my friend -jeff
Jeff, so nice to read this flowing letter
Yes, I’ve never quite been able to put that metaphoric comparison into words– these are the twilight / dawn periods of the year. These ephemeral transitions have a certain feel, like nothing else does. Also, I’m struck by your thoughts of spring-time mending. It’s certainly taking place on the mountain. The garden fence has been bumped out and patched; The holes the wild boars have blasted through over the winter are now double lashed with sturdy stitching. It’s no shock to me that as we move through this album, we are using it to process and illuminate our landscapes and worldview. Thankfully, we are in spring.
I’m so glad you’ve mentioned the album cover, it's one I’ve thought about at great length. This supernatural luminescence you describe in the front cover’s image is so striking. Strange, this glow, I also attribute it to Audra, more so than some off camera soft box. I’m getting this 1920’s Egyptian vibe coming across as well. While it’s not specifically pointed to, I inject Cleopatra’s narrative, and perhaps that of a flapper as well. Both these rising out of the jeweled and beaded headdress adorning Audra.
It’s hard to know when an artist is evoking literal, or even classical symbolism in an image. Perhaps Audra is imbuing our thoughts with her own idiosyncratic myth. It paints Audra as royalty, in this beaded head-dress and sturdy neck piece. Her hand is extended in both repose and strength. So many questions arise with this image, but without an artistic statement from Barnes or Audra, I’m left to just process the feelings that come indirectly with it. Those feelings mirror all your choice words of “wither-and-renewal”, and what is and is not.
From “Crystal Screams” first seconds, Audra sets the stage for us. The whining pedal steel, the aggressive and harrowing palm mute of the minor chords strum, point me to a wide-eyed vision of a stark reality, a hint of terror even, and the gut feelings of fight or flight. The delayed synth chiming in with her vocals seem to shake one’s shoulders. The mandolin’s delicate and dramatic plinking, all seem to let Audra’s verse hang in the air, just before this first chorus drops into place, setting us running. Audra’s vocal delivery on Crystal Screams verses are super nuanced. Their hushed yet fast delivery adds a feeling of importance, of a secret we must know, now.
In arrangement, this song’s rhythmic swing is super interesting. Notice the kick placement switches between the verse and chorus. The first verse being void of any percussion elements, drawing more on the guitar for its swing, then the steady pulsing of kick drum coming in on this first chorus. The bass swinging into dog house rhythm to match, pushes us into country territory, giving the drama of “Crystal Screams" lyrics a theatrical push into a twirling, do i dare say vortex? The double push that comes after this first chorus, the thump thump being highlighted under the verse’s rhythm push the tension and brooding air of this tune into overdrive.
As you’ve pointed out, this songs is just as nuanced in instrumentation as pervious cry’s from Mended Vessel. This gentle double tracked vocal under the last lines of the chorus, almost unnoticeable on first listen, is the kind of detail that has kept me coming back this album. There are things you feel, but don’t know why, until you know the song by heart, by its shadows. It’s not common to have these kind of background “noises” in music with such a country tinge. The swirling frequency sweep at 2:20 is brilliant. These, like the Audra Aura on the front of Mended Vessel, push me from classic folk tails into supernatural legend.
Re: The Heys,
It’s so strange–these “Hey’s". How do you place meaning on such a word, let alone repeated at times, six deep. I found myself trying to track them, wondering how the lines before them change their meaning OR could change their meaning. Much like first utterance, “Hey, Look at Me”, I feel like they snap me back from the spiraling imagery that she places before them, it re-grounds me. Though, they also evoke this deep long folk tradition somehow, as though she is on a balance beam of folk legend and personal narrative. I so associate this kind of delivery and use with cautionary tales, but here it's more difficult to place. In my opinion, that is because they are likely doing several things at once. Strange and magic for such a open and sometimes amorphous word to be in such frequency, successfully.
Chris Bathgate and I continue to correspond with letters, each contemplating a single track of Audra Kubat's 2016 album, Mended Vessel
Hey again Chris.
It's a Sunday morning as I write this, and a winter's sun can't warm up the chill here at ground level. Between other writing assignments, I keep looking forward to returning to Mended Vessel and corresponding with you. What's new with you this week?
So, with "September," you're kinda carried through the fog of an austere opening, and eventually we're picked up by what's resonating with me most, the percussion: kicking in after the first verse; it mimicked, for me, something like a locomotive's chugging propulsion. The wistful lyrical ideas of bringing her "dear sweet love home again..." made it feel like a lost 19th century shanty tune or lovelorn Appalachian folk song. I have to remark, again, upon the suggestion of supernatural elements when she sings about "an ancient call..." that rings out. But let's also highlight the emotional waves of her voice, when she sings about the "laughter" that they share, it breaks with poignancy.
"September" stands out because of that electric guitar getting more space to surf and shred, something akin to a Mark Knopfler-esque understated flamboyancy... This tune could stand alone with Audra's acoustic playing, but I'm curious to hear what you think the electric guitar, paired with that piano, add to the atmosphere....
more soon,
-jeff
~~~~~~~
Hey again to you, Jeff
Yes, this album has been weaving its way into my thoughts daily; its been the soundtrack for spring up here on the mountain. There’s usually just pair of hummingbirds at the feeder in the winter, there’s many now. They zoom in and out of astonishing dog fights while waiting for their turn to feed. Otherwise things are pretty mellow up here on the mountain. Today I’m installing a galvanized top line onto a 6 foot fence, and then hiking into the woods to do some maintenance on a pelton wheel.
I’m right in line with you on this song, the feeling this is a lost song, from long ago. This minor country lilt elicits all the murder ballads and country tragedies I’m heard so far. Especially in this “austere opening”, which carries in the minor centric verse.
I’m also in agreement with the thought that the song could be just Audra’s acoustic and her voice, its a great folk song with a wonderful vocal melody. I think the instrumentation nuances you are bringing out are, again, nuanced and unobtrusive. I’m wondering how the production conversations for this record went prior to, and during, its recording. The song has the sweeping drones of the introduction, akimbo finger picking guitars, the rhythmic piano accompaniment, the shuffling drums, which each take small turns stepping out of the roll of supporting Audra’s voice.
To answer your specific questions about this pairing of electric guitar, piano and the atmosphere. My favorite moment of the song is actually at 2:12, when these supporting elements break free in their own. As if replying to Audra’s voice almost. Again, they break out in the final chorus to make the conversation feel complete. I’m wondering though, what would pronounced inversions sound like in this song. As a songwriter I’m wondering how that could be implemented to add even more zoomed in detail, but that wish might undo the very thing I appreciate about this songs unobtrusive instrumentation.
best,
-Chris
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click here for more on Chris Bathgate, re: his new album 'Dizzy Seas' (out May 19)
Listen.
The three of these singers were/are, already, singularly exceptional. So there is a considerable augmentation of elegance, now, to have their talents brought together as a collaborative known as Kubat, Finlay, & Rose.
photo by Jean Mason
That's Audra Kubat, Tamara Finlay, and Emily Rose - the lyricists, vocalists, and guitarists who fuse their harmonies for five songs on a new debut self-titled EP.
This song is called "Demons"
The trio are performing a concert at 20 Front Street tonight at 7pm, which also features singer/songwriter Anthony Retka. INFO (This is also a birthday celebration for Kubat, who, readers of this blog will find weekly contributions from, as she and I swap an epistolary review of new music by Chris Bathgate... But that's for another post...)
KFR's limited run EP features idyllic and evocative covers of CSNY's "Ohio" and Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling In Love." Those two songs are already inherent show-stoppers, one for its amorous swoons and the other for its heartwrenching somberness.
Recorded at Rustbelt Studios, with Bob Ebeling and Al Sutton
"Shadows and Light" trails a softly rustling guitar under the gracefully curling melody, which feels like a hymnal; a blessed little ballad for the soothe of an on-setting evening.
"Party Hat" brings a bitter-sweetness, with a furtively cadenced vocal delivery from Rose churning in a lower register of sing-speak delivery through the verses that blooms into a aching/cathartic chorus of unsparing vocals, all the while Finlay and Kubat add an angelic/ghostly augmentation to the song's chamber.
And then here is "Demons." This song's beauty springs from the interwoven texture of their unique timbres, with Rose and Finlay delicately weaving their voices just a thousandth of a second behind Kubat's lead...
The melody, chorus, even the refrains and throughout the bridge, are consistently energizing, or at least restorative. Not only in its lyrics, with reports of demons rendered powerless and longings for peace, but also just in the arrangement of those voices--especially at 3:35, when Kubat sings a final verse as Rose and Finlay whisper out a gliding bit of gossamer "oohs..." And the guitars, quietly brushing along underneath, seem to sound as though they build towards its modest crescendo, with the strumming sounding almost like victorious claps.
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
The epistolary review, where I swap letters with a musical artist to collaboratively explore, dissect, ponder and inevitably illuminate the new release of songs by another individual music artist-- IS BACK
This time, Detroit's most charming and cerebral of modern folk singers, Audra Kubat, is putting down her guitar and going back to the keyboard to use her erudite ways with the written word, and instead of expressing her own lyrics, she will now divine what she can from the lyrics and sounds of Michigan/California-creator of ambient-folk-scapes, Mr. Chris Bathgate
Chris Bathgate released Dizzy Seas on Quite Scientific last Friday.
Over the next 10 weeks, Kubat and I will share with you our thoughts and experiences of a single track. We hope this expands perspectives on how much can actually be discovered inside of an album, that the parts are greater taken one at a time, than as a whole...
Without further ado... Play the song below (maybe even loop it,) and enjoy the first bit of communique between Kubat and I....
Dear Audra,
I'm very excited to begin a fresh batch of letters about an album. I'm excited to transition from exploring YOUR work to, now, working with you, as we piece our way through the brand new album from Chris Bathgate.
I have to say, at the onset of this 2nd installment of epistolary album reviewing, that both of you have held a comparable sway over me, in terms of the relationship a listener has to a songwriter - not that your music or your lyrical signatures are similar so to speak, but that both of you create music that sounds quietly powerful.
I feel like I'm going to risk throwing around the word "profound...," too much, in the letters ahead. But let's just dive in to "Water," the first track from Dizzy Seas.
Chris' voice vaults in just a fraction of a measure before the music--not sure if that's a synthesized bassline, but it is quick to start carrying his striding cadence with this notable furtiveness. This song, slightly akin to the song "Calvary," from 2016, shows Chris' proclivity towards merging the meditative and the almost-manic. Putting soft, swaying ambient drones over a percussive element that sounds like it's urgent, or racing, or restless. This is the case with that elegant violin breathing sweetly over a bassline and a second analog synth pulse that are just about jittery... Or maybe not jittery... Maybe they are just babbling along like a brook.
Yes, I had to bring a brook into this, some kind of watery imagery. Bathgate's latest tract seems to be not quite folk or Americana, but something that jumps off of those organic sounds and seeks some new kind of genre - and whatever that genre is, it's a sound, production-wise, that seems bent on creating a magical effect that evokes a sense of the outdoors. I think that's evident in the way there seems to be lots of ambient tones sort of swaying or breezing at the very edged curtains of the song's aural environment. I feel, indeed, that there is space around me, and there are images that come in when his lyrics describe the water, and the way the light plays upon it...
I also appreciate the production here. There is, just about 45 seconds before its conclusion, the sound of what seems to be a motorboat starting up with a metallic growl... And it propels the song forward just after a lulling period. Either in a car or on headphones, that is a interestingly startling to hear.
It makes me wonder how typical it is, in terms of the experience of songwritnig (not the process, but the experience...) wherein images actually come to YOU. It makes me feel like you and Chris can be as painters, sometimes..., at least in the studio!
Eager to hear your thoughts
And eager to write more letters
Happy Spring,
-
-jeff
------
Dear Jeff,
I am also excited to begin the next installment of letters. As a songwriter, I'm often thinking deeply about music and lyrics, yet I rarely have the opportunity to talk in depth about my thoughts on songs by others.
I dove into 'Dizzy Seas' and its first track – 'Water'. I also took notice of Chris' voice as it enters alone (just for that split second, the song stands in frozen solitude). It's almost jarring and in that same space of time, it feels as if the song has always been playing. That it had existed before it was audible.
The entrance of this song calls me to attention. This seems like a purposeful shock as if, like his words, we are being cast across the unknown of the ocean's cold waters, cushioned only by that voice: singular, rounded, hushed yet knowing. I feel that this song is preparing us for our journey through this album. His thoughts aren't in his control, they reflect against waves, scatter and shift with the changing of tides and the whims of rippling seas. His words stretch out and can be felt or they can be quieted or stilled, and even lost in creases that flank pathways. Regardless, he 'calls it out'. He 'calms it down'.
I agree that the music is meditative, yet the rolling of the brushed drums asks me to stay attentive. The pulsing underbelly pushes me along – it's urgent without feeling rushed (tricky thing to accomplish in music). There's a place we're being led to through a soundscape with subtle pads and cymbal splashes, a distance voice and an additional layer of moody organ, maybe. This song extends past genre for me, it has a timelessness. Again, it seems to have always existed. I imagine Chris placing his hands in the bone-chilled river to capture this song.
Then the violins come in and turn on the light, a beacon, playing as voices that quell, calm, and call. A hymn. This brings me back to the beginning of this letter. For me this song is an invitation to walk along side this album, knowing each track is learning about themselves as they play out of headphones, car stereos, and laptops. I wonder if Chris is asking us to be open in this song...to understand that the songwriter sends their songs out into the world without knowing when, where, or how they will land.
I hope I was able to paint an image that reflects. On my first listen, I felt I was being called by it. To join, to submit, to close my eyes and go blindly. So I did.
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