Winter in the Northwest comes upon you hard and fast. Fall’s flirtation is brushed aside, and with the fervor of an angry drunk Winter barrels into the room. One moment you shed your coat after a trek uphill, stopping to rest and wiping sweat from your brow, the next a gale wind is driving you back inside, back to comfort.
Suddenly your light jacket is no longer sufficient armament against winter’s chill, and you must arm yourself with tweeds and a scarf, and where did you put your gloves? You take comfort in soups (Matzoh ball! Lentil and chard!), a good wine, the company of good friends, and of course, proper music. The music of winter does not fight off the chill, it does not transport you to days of sunshine and garden parties. The music of winter embraces the cold and the darkness, but nonetheless comforts you with it’s own ambient warmth.
Today the winter wind is blowing hard, the waters of Seattle’s Puget Sound are an angry gunmetal; passing boats rock up and down, fighting the race of the waves to the shore. I am bundled in a grey pullover, and there is matzoh ball soup heating on the stove. I have chosen Califone’s remarkable 2001 release, Roomsound, as my toddy for the afternoon. It was on an afternoon like this, in 2001 that I first heard this record, in an apartment not 10 blocks away, with a view of the cold, cold city pressing against my windows, not at all unlike today.
Six years later, the record is just as wonderful, just as warm. I may have changed and grown by leaps and bounds, lived and gained countless new insights into myself and my life, yet Califone is much the same. The sounds are layered upon layers, the heart is Americana, but the soul is something darker and more complex (yet what could be darker than Americana?). Califone happens in the spaces between the percussion, a busy layered sound coupled with near monotone vocals that inhabit the music as another instrument. Combined it is both comforting and disconcerting, like a song by Nick Cave or the Dirty Three. (The shared reliance on atmosphere, on the unspoken yet implied threat of violence, the music’s energy barely kept in check by the musicians, straining to be released and allowed to run free, teeth bared.)
I am seated at the table by the windows, matzoh ball soup at my side, and Roomsound on my headphones. It is 4pm, the sun is disappearing behind the Olympic mountains, behind the cloud cover, as though it too is retiring from this viciously cold afternoon. The ferries cross the sound, a strong wind blows. and the lights of the city slowly wink on. There is a feeling settling over me that feels feels suspiciously like contentment.
Califone :: Roomsound
Highly recommended
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