You can’t get a lot more ethereal and folkishly organic than the music being born out the hearts and heads of the Bowerbirds. At the core, and I suspect it will always be, this band is Phil Moore and Beth Tacular. And although there has been a revolving door of line-up changes, it is the constant ebb and flow of shared human emotion played out between both Phil and Beth, that act as the catalyst for their songs and music. When you watch the mini documentary, you’ll see the surface of a relationship. But, you’ll also suspect, and come away with the sense that these two people; this man and woman, are not only making their way in the world, but keeping a journal and writing upon its brittle pages with the red ink of lovesong. You hear their love, their fear and every other crazy human emotion in-between. Maybe nowadays love is corny, or at least talking about is, but one cannot simply listen to their songs as something two people just created for the sake of creating. Yes, one purpose is to share and entertain, but in the end these are songs two people crafted out of necessity, as something tangible to hold onto to buoy them across time, and predicaments known and not known. Yes, it is a public journal, but with private and secret meaning. The forthcoming album, due to drop February 21st, is titled The Clearing. Perchance The Clearing is metaphor for the space two people need to clear, to rid a marked territory of everyone else, and all other aspects of the known world, in order to make room enough for two to grow miraculously as one. Peace.
About “The Clearing” by Bowerbirds from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.