James Vincent McMorrow has no doubt released what will become one of the most talked about and listened to albums of 2014. Period. It is nigh impossible to argue contrarily against the bare beauty of this rural folksy falsetto meets electronica permutation.
The album opens with the stark and poetically up ending track Cavalier, this song alone is enough to slay the most rogue demon raging in one’s heart. A song which borders on the gospel, and with such grandiose breadth it sucks the literal air out of the room. Cavalier, oh how inaptly titled.
The Lakes is born through tectonic heart beats before they are dashed, coursing bloodied and bruised over the smoothly worn river stone of JVM’s lichen-crusted mewling. By song end, leaving only a memorable coppery and twangy feeling in your ears.
And of course there is Red Dust, again you may wonder if William Butler Yeats is ghostwriting the lyrics unearthed from Mr. McMorrow’s soul. This ode would be at home sung out from the choir at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. So righteous. “Sometimes my hands, they don’t feel like my own, I need someone to love, I need someone to hold…” . Gooseflesh, no?
The track Gold, is as hopeful as Spring time, strewn with clover and dark-red Helleborine. All Points, Look Out and Repeating are all standard issue beauties from the McMorrow archived reverie of the tender and the true . That is until we come upon the latter three tracks. The title-track Post Tropical glistens star-like, inhabiting a haunted space lit by the lighthouse beacon of JVM’s understated singing. It possess cold tendrils and crashes upon rocks its white water and fury, before plummeting over shear cliffs into oblivion. Then there is my favorite track, Glacier. The absolute beauty of James’ voice is front and center here. Set in a call and response tug of war between music and voiced beauty, with hand claps aplenty. The sirens are calling, amid a pensive tuba the woodwinds are crying, and the crescendo builds ever higher before settling mist like and wounded. “I want to go south of the river, face it alone in the heart of the winter…”
The Post Tropical LP closes with Outside, Digging, which could be an ode, perhaps even a final goodbye and thank you to the recently departed Seamus Heaney. For Seamus Heaney penned a most excellent poem, Digging, and so I thought, well maybe. “There is little light from the warmth of the sun…”. Peace.
Post Tropical: Track Listing
01. Cavalier
02. The Lakes
03. Red Dust
04. Gold
05. All Points
06. Look Out
07. Repeating
08. Post Tropical
09. Glacier
10. Outside, Digging
Cavalier Lyrics:
speak until the dust
settles in the same specific place
light refused to go
drink it from a cast and iron plate
instead of cold milk
was offered unripe
instead of silence
considered craven
nothing made it seem
hidden where the aging soil was pure
pressed against the crease
mountains become fragrant at the source
how can you stand this
exotic angle
i read it somewhere
that they would lie still
i remember how cloth hung
flexing with the forest clung
half waist and high raised arms
kicking at the slightest form
i remember my first love
i remember my first love
unrelied i was called
missing teeth out of favour
nickel beach it was all
gathering by the sundial
i woke hard
i woke heavy
for the half way stop
five whole hours in
when i woke hard
i woke heavy with the live or parts
i remember how cloth hung
flexing with the forest clung
half waist and high raised arms
kicking at the slightest form
i remember my first love
i remember my first love
i remember my first love.