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

It’s time for another instalment of this series. Hope you like this one, because it’s a precious little pearl.

Eastmountainsouth will for me always be associated with my time in Paris. Forever will I see the snow storms and be reminded of the cold moments I spent in the city of millions, of the pain, but also of the exhilarating tension through which I lived there.

Their version of Hard Times (an old classic that goes back to the Civil War Time, or so it is rumoured) is such an uplifting song that even my solitude of the time couldn’t resist it’s charm.
Unfortunately there’s only a small bit of their version online to be found on Last.fm.

Founded in 1999, the group joined together the vocally astonishing Kat Maslich and the equally amazing Peter Adams. Both singers and writers had Southern backgrounds which can be clearly heard at some points in their album.
They only ever produced on album together under the name of their ‘band’ and which only came out in 2003, years after they had met and started working together. It remains to this day a perfect piece of music that unfortunately didn’t find any succession either by them continuing to work together or by either Adams or Maslich apart.

Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of videos that I could link here online, but you can listen to them on Last.fm or Pandora, their yahoo music site gives all the info you need. But if you trust me a little bit, then you’ll just go and buy the album. it’s worth it.

Not only are their texts of a particular clarity and a touching emotional expression, but their music has something timeless in it’s depths. Something that just can’t leave you cold. Something that can hardly be described other than that certain longing for completeness while valuing your own incompleteness.

I’ll leave you with one of the most amazing songs ever written: So are you to me.

Update:
Meanwhile, someone has put their version of Hard Times on Youtube: Enjoy.

yseult Personal, Soulfood music, song

My personal stress level and the one in my home has been on a constant high level the last couple of months. (To be honest, I can’t remember when it hasn’t been on a tense strain anymore.)

Apart from the usual problems that come with such a situation such as tense reactions, much less patience in everyday contacts, mental exhaustion (my reading subscriptions are piling up beside me) etc. there’s another thing that heightens the vicious cycle: isolation.

When we tend to throw ourselves into work, or tense work situations ask us to do it, then the first thing we’re cutting out on is the down time. Or rather the non-oriented down time.

Maybe this is just a typical intellectual’s problem, but having down time that is not itself filled with clearly denoted things such as reading something specific or watching something specific, is something that’s necessary. It’s the simple difference between a filled silence or relaxation and a true empty silence where silence suffices itself to a degree.

Meeting friends, just to meet them. Not to DO anything together, but just to be together for instance is one of those things where I surprised myself thinking ‘…but, what use is it…? We should be doing this or that…’

I find that automated train of thought of mine completely shocking, because I try to excel at the method of not finding a use or an intended goal in everything. Something that is so natural to our modern society. Sometimes just doing something for itself and without the knowledge of an immediate gain is much more important than actually achieving something on your to do list.

Why? Because we’re not defined by what we can achieve, but rather by what we can let go. Ultimately it’s only in those unplanned moments that the truly good things happen. Not because they’re better than the plan you made to achieve your degree or make your love happy, but because the unexpected and the unplanned is something the mind needs to even be able to project, plan and aim. If planning was all that was needed for a good life, a full life, then everyone could do it.

Be courageous and allow yourself the gap in planning, the silence in doing and the liberty to just… be.

yseult Soulfood