After not rolling a Wooden Sky album in over a decade, this is my second one in the last five reviews. That’s random for you.
Some readers have asked how I do “random”. It is accomplished with percentile dice to pick a section of my music collection (I have it all divided into sections of roughly 50). Once I’ve rolled a section, I roll again to select a single album from it. If I’ve already reviewed that one, I randomly go left or right until I find an unreviewed record.
So…there you go. Now on with the content!
Disc 1758 is…. When Lost at Sea
Artist: The Wooden Sky
Year of Release: 2008
What’s up with the Cover? This graphic depicts either a murder or a very unsafe method of ice fishing. At least everyone involved wore a winter coat.
How I Came To Know It: I just told this story five albums ago, but to reiterate, I got into the Wooden Sky through their 2012 album, “Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun”. “When Lost at Sea” was the result of me digging through their back catalogue once I was hooked.
Speaking of hooks, that’s what those guys on the cover need to be using if they want to catch a fish. That pole’s not going to catch a fish unless they tie a hook and a line to the end of it and stop poking their buddy in the stomach.
How It Stacks Up: I have four Wooden Sky albums, and I parted way with a fifth. Of those five albums, “When Lost At Sea” comes in at #1, just edging out the last album I have by the Wooden Sky that remains unreviewed and which…I’ll talk about when I roll it.
Ratings: 5 stars
The Wooden Sky have given the world plenty of fine indie folk records over the years, but the finest of all remains their first. “When Lost at Sea” was a revelation when I heard it. Fresh off of listening to “Every Child a Daughter, Every Moon a Sun” and pleasantly thinking that it was as good as it gets, along came the band’s debut to show me what true excellence looks like.
Note that by “excellence” I don’t mean an uplifting collection of happy, inspiring songs. “When Lost at Sea” is a dark and brooding record, full of murder, poverty and despair. It just explores those themes in the most inspiring way possible.
The record has a slow inexorability to its dirges which is surprisingly beautiful. A slow dance around the room at the Masque of the Red Death. It’s a party that you know is going to end poorly, but the music is so exquisite you willingly walk the dark path before you.
It starts with the vocals of Gavin Gardiner who has a natural hurt to everything he sings. His strangled and angst-ridden delivery would be well suited to rock and roll and gives that edge to these songs even though in their bones, they are folk. The crossover works partly because Gardiner has one foot planted so evenly in each tradition.
The band adds in a bit of general clangor that would suit a nineties rock song, but they never let the noise overtake the melody, and most of the songs have clever hooks that are hard to single out, nestled as they are in the overall structure of the song. These are hooks that serve the structure of the story being told and not just there to make you tap your foot.
Lyrically, the record has some fine poetry. Their eponymous song starts with this ominous bit of foreshadowing:
“I dreamt last night that you were making love
To a bird you swore you'd given up
Oh how I woke up shaking.
The wolves kept watch on the wind outside
And I kept my eyes towards a wooden sky
There would be no escaping.”
The characters on the record are well drawn throughout, and most share the grim fatalism you see expressed above. It is a dreary but undeniable beauty.
It is hard to pick a favourite song on the record, but “Darker Streets Than Mine” could be it. It features not just the depth of sadness following love lost, but the aimless ambitionless quality that often comes with it:
“So I got up and I got drunk
And then I got down on my luck
Ever since you left me I've been swinging
From a tree high above
Where I've been looking down on love
It's been a long time since we talked but I ain't changed
And as much as I ain't changed I'm not the same”
The album ranges back and forth between a lush production where the instruments soar with impotent but poetic rage, and sparse guitar/vocal songs which draw you into the introspective side of sadness. No less tragic, just rolled into a smaller, quieter space. It is one of these, “The Lonesome Death of Helen Betty Osborne” that closes out the record, trailing off into a gloomy reverie that provides the perfect end to a perfect record.
I’ve heard this record countless times, having overplayed the hell out of it when I first bought it. A decade later returning to it was easy and welcome, and it quickly had me wrapped in its gloomy and thought provoking-world as if I’d never left. A classic.
Best tracks: All tracks
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