featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
August 4, 2022
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Quick, before we get too deep into the weeds of August, let's take a look back into what happened over the last four weeks. These are probably our ten favorite songs to wander across our radar during July. We call it:
WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT JULY?!!
1. Amanda Shires, "Stupid Love" Take It Like a Man (ATO, Jul 29)
2. First Aid Kit, "Angel" single (Columbia, Jun 22)
3. Chris Dover, "Whiskeyhead" It's a Difficult World (Mama Hoodoo's, Jun 17)
4. Lee Bains + Glory Fires, "(In Remembrance of the) 40-Hour Week" Old-Time Folks (Don Giovanni, Aug 5)
5. Florist, "Feathers" Florist (Double Double Whammy, Jul 30)
6. Plains, "Problem With It" I Walked With You a Ways (Anti, Oct 14)
7. Band of Heathens, "Nashville Tuesday Morning" single (BoH, Jul 15)
8. Dead Horses, "Days Grow Longer" Brady Street (Vos & Wolff, Aug 12)
9. John Fullbright, "Paranoid Heart" The Liar (Blue Dirt, Sep 30)
10. John Moreland, "Neon Middle June" Birds in the Ceiling (Old Omens, Jul 22)
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An artist's music belongs to that artist. It's simply up to us to decide whether we'll follow them where they go. Over the years, I hope we've established here our approval of evolution and change, our admiration of artists who make themselves a home in the creative sandbox. Here at R&B HQ, we embrace challenge and discovery. If we want a record that sounds just like that last record, we know full well we can just ... y'know, listen to that last record again.
What I call our kind of music draws its lifeblood from this spirit. Our kind of music flirts with relevance only as it accepts the challenge to change. That sounds like Alynda Segarra and Hurray for the Riff Raff. It sounds like Amanda Shires. It sounds like John Moreland.
Where Moreland's LP5 dabbled in these digital sounds and textures, Birds in the Ceiling makes an all-in commitment. Where that 2020 collaboration with Matt Pence sounded like John Moreland's songs and voice overlaid with an alien template, the new sessions draw no line between his writing and the arrangements - they're all of one piece.
Listeners who have looked to John Moreland's star from the early days, those who have found melody and meaning in his work might feel they've lost the thread with Birds. It's not simply swapping guitars for mellotron. Moreland is trying new things with songwriting, with his words and his guitar. While these are still John Moreland songs, we're not trading in the same indulgent sad bastard lyrics we came to love and expect.
A good amount of Birds in the Ceiling is focused outward, offering perspective on the state of our society. Programmed boom-clap percussion is joined by acoustic fingerpicking and moments of ambient mellotron on "Cheap Idols Dressed In Expensive Garbage". Beneath darker, overcast tones, Moreland reflects on the plastic business of those who prey on the hope and trust of the masses. Lyrics on the album tend to be less direct: The bright blue night will surely shake us / The stars will write the songs that save us. The Oklahoma songwriter avoids preachiness by leaning into more impressionistic lines. He doesn't name names on "Claim Your Prize", though there are likely allusions to the sources of our current us-vs-them tendencies. Keys are melodic, even as a watery distortion creeps in, and Moreland's soulful vocal is layered atop skittering beats: I don't know how you missed it / Your hero is a thief.
While Moreland hasn't disguised that voice, he has acknowledged that he's sought to de-emphasize it on Birds. Nevertheless, it serves as one of the most reliably constant aspects of his sound as his music becomes less organic. He's also taken cares to strengthen his acoustic guitar on songs like the gorgeous "Dim Little Light". A lone strummed guitar carries "Generational Dust" until it's joined by ticking percussion, though it's Moreland's expressive singing that's up front on the song, a reflection on inheritance: The darker ground we covered / Decided or discovered / Turned us into who we are today.
Birds In the Ceiling features Moreland and producer Pence surrounded by much the same ensemble that created LP5. In addition to Matt Pence's percussion, Bonnie Whitmore contributes bass and cello, and longtime collaborator John Calvin Abney is responsible for keys and mellotron. This isn't EDM. It's not futuristic or even truly pop. The stunning "Neon Middle June" blooms from Abney's improvised piano, acoustic folding comfortably beside digital. What if who I am is who I used to be, the singer muses. Darling you know that's the thought that paralyzes me. In an earlier interview, Moreland comments: Anything that I'm into or that has moved me is fair game. "Ugly Faces" is supported by busily tripping electronic percussion, and that's just fine. It's not Daft Punk. Moreland remains Moreland: I'm a lonely shade of blue ... Wish I could've found a way to be of better use.
On "Claim Your Prize", John Moreland shares, I stopped asking how bad the world is broken. His sixth record is more about asking the questions than becoming mired in the search for answers. Birds may raise questions for certain longtime listeners looking for Still In the Throes or Bigger Badder Luv, but the more they relax into these new songs the more they might hear the continuity with Moreland's earlier work. With time, what might at first be distracting becomes just another tool in service of the songwriter's special vision. The title cut that closes the record deserves a place alongside his best, alien birdsounds and all. A gorgeous track, it ends with a beautiful lyric: Let a bird be a bird, let a train be a train / Let the sky be the sky, let the rain be the rain / Let a curse be a curse, Let a blessing be a blessing / Death alone is certain, but life is a beautiful question. Amen.
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