The Philosopher's Attic

I don’t know about you, but I personally am finding myself in a bit of a starve for good songwriter music at the moment. There really isn’t a lot of good albums about to come out (apart from the new Peter Gabriel one which I can’t wait to listen to), or that have graced us this winter. Sure, Brandi Carlile has released her long-awaited album just a couple of months ago and Sivert Hoyem has also a new album out that I like. But, I find myself delving deeper and deeper into the shuffle function of iTunes in order to discover older music that I haven’t listened to in a while.

Obviously, I ran across Eastmountainsouth sooner or later, since they keep being bumped to my shuffle list. I had already covered the group as a true songwriter jewel, but seeing as their only album never had a sequel and it doesn’t look like they ever will do music together again, I thought about posting a follow-up to Peter Bradley Adams, the brains and voice behind Eastmountainsouth.

Since 2001, he has released several albums with various female singers to contrast his ‘the dreamy-voiced Adams’ as The Boston Globe called him. Gather Up (2006), Leavetaking (2008) and the latest album Traces (2009) all hold more or less the same layered quality of harmony that was so typical for Eastmountainsouth and that drew so many in.

Out of the three I feel like Traces – a fitting title – has come back to those roots in a way that closes the circle while giving this artist more maturity and depth, even if I wouldn’t have thought it possible. There is a certain calm quality about the construction of his songs and the sound. ‘Even’, ‘polished’, are words that springs to mind, and ‘touching’ another one.

In May 2009, “Leavetaking” the IAP awarded Peter Bradley Adams IAP’s the award “Best CD’s of 2008″ for Best Singer-Songwriter-Male.

Even so, with awards and even with steady releases, Adams has never truly made it into the charts or has been featured in popular TV Series (usually a good way to get people to notice you).
This circumstance earns him a special entry in my series. I hope you enjoy.

yseult Soulfood music, song, Soulfood

Draw me a heart, my love,
to paint all over the walls,
over the airs of jealousy,
the hate and the flaws.

Draw me a heart the size
of your mountains,
your valleys and passions,
draw it large, draw it true,
and let me crawl up inside it.

Draw me a heart
to bury my fears in.
A heart for the future,
a heart for the past.

A heart in so many colours,
where flowers of blossoms past,
rain down on both our pains
and longings.

A heart so truthful,
it has no place in this world.

A heart so pure,
the sun would rival its glow.

Draw me a heart, my love.
Don’t leave me behind.
Let me paint it then,
over all the walls that keep
this darkness in.

A heart so pure, so truthful,
a heart so big, so bright.

It’ll be my world from now on.
We don’t need anything else.

A heart. It’s all it takes after all.

yseult Poetry

There are voices in this silence,
reprimand, anger, pain and frustration,
all come to speak without their usual words.

And every silence becomes a spectator,
of such a sorry display of refusal.
Their voiceless hardness is slowly,
ever so slowly, eating away at our sanity.

For silences are never alone.
Too quickly joined by symbionts,
death bringers and half-truths.

And the voices of these personaes,
so true they ring,
telling you you’re right,
telling me I’m wrong,
telling them they’re strong,
telling him he’s polite,
telling her the distance is wanted,
telling him he’s haunted.

By shadows past,
and feelings lost,
favoured heart, you’re letting it all be eaten,
digested, processed and forgotten.

And all because a crushing silence breaks more
surely than a true word ever could.

yseult Poetry friendship, Poetry, silence