Dave's Music #46 Humbird - Still Life
When I decided to make Thursday review day, I thought I should try to stay with fairly recent releases and of course I would want to really like the whole release and not just a few songs. Since it is a personal thing to take the time to write the post, I'm doing the artists that I have a deeper connections to somehow. Well today's comes back to three house concerts, multiple local venue concerts, and even one that ended up with the band sacking out on couches in the house. Humbird meets all these points and then she goes out and releases an incredible blend of her experimental folk with her bandmates Pete Quirsfeld & Pat Keen, and a mix select cello, fiddle, beats and voices. You truly have one of the best releases from the last 12 months. It was released in Oct 2021, and click here to read a nice review in the Adventures in Americana.
I could have picked multiple photos of the band for our intro, but I wanted to show you I deliberately asked for a signature on her vinyl because this lady has no ceiling where she'll be in 5, 10, or 20 years and my son will inherit a gem in my collection when I'm left to be a still life jpeg, or whatever form it takes in the future. Of course Lady Olivia was curious what I was up to, and that's life eh?
Let's start with this is a pandemic recording... mostly done in the house on the cover of the release. Siri explains more in the liner prose.
Let's start enjoying the release:
1) Hymn for Whom
A song I shared in Americana Hymns, it truly shows both Siri's roots in the Christian hymnal as she wrote a fine melody. I didn't check but it should be classically written in F like most hymns. The song is rich in texture.
2) Song for Charlotte
The story of Siri's neighbor Charlotte learning to ride in her bike during the height of the George Floyd protests with tear gas seeping into the houses at night. Synth and woodwinds are such a gentle touch to stressful recollection of tiny moment of peace.
3) May
I hoping Siri finally documented my birth month, though it turned out to be a wonderful simile for a blessing. I can be at peace with this good night prayer for peace and breathe of love, maybe next time it'll be about the month of May. As with this eclectic group of musicians it floats and flutters to an ending like a butterfly in MAY! (Ok maybe I'm stretching my month into it, but it does float away)
Erik and Sarah Elstran put this unique video together for the song.
4) Plum Sky
Turn up the tempo as the heat of the tension a city exploding all happens under a plum sky. You hear the strength of Pat and Pete in the percussion texture of the song.
Erik and Sarah Elstran also put this unique video together for the song.
5) Heavy
As the first side of the vinyl comes to a close, Siri bring her 3 syllable prose to environmental prose touched with a cello and tack piano.
6) Standing in the Way
Native rhythms to start the song, shifting and waving like prairie grass, Siri admits she might have held her ground and now is standing in the way. The summer imagery keeps moving as you gently fall in love with the song.
7) Stone Giant
I sense a little of cabin fever and feeling stuck inside a house, something about the interlude between the verses, they work as helping you go one counter to the song.
8) Pink Moon for John Prine
Siri tells the story the day that John died on April 7, 2020 was a night of a full moon, and the April moon is known as the Pink Moon. Her and Luke Callen went off in search of sky in the big city of Minneapolis and she tells of Luke running like a kid in an open field as he was sure he found just the right spot. Luke shows up in the song running like a mad man and sharing a meal that he'll tell you that he likely made, and of course news of a someone passing documents our pandemic and a nod to John.
Google tells me Pink Moons are "like the many other astrological events that signal a time for change and growth, this is the perfect opportunity to get rid of any cosmic junk you've been carrying around. The pink moon is all about newness, freshness, and letting go of the things that aren't serving you"
While there is that in the song, you can sense sadness for John, and she gave it that Prine picking beat I instantly recognized as just a little outside her normal songwriting style. It's a gorgeous song.
Recently the band put a live video together with the song during there west coast road trip.
9) My Pillow is a River
Whistle me a tune and gently flow this river of textures with again the tasteful woodwinds.
10) On The Day We Are Together Again
This song should make a top 10 Greatest Pandemic Song List, and when I talked to Siri and gave her the Great River Folk Factoid Survey, she admitted this song was requested in lyric form and she knows it's framed and hanging in the kitchens of her mom and aunt. The song written in a classic style of an end of the night Irish pub song. While you might be tempted to enjoy the video, the studio version of the song is so much stronger, and what do I hear even Luke singing in the background.
And of course this video is from inside the house that the cd was recorded in, and is the cover art.
Speaking of the Great River Folk Factoid Survey, this video was one of my favorites; and of course Hobbes sticks his fat belly in to say hi to a friend. Fitting since his arch enemy and a 1/3 of his size, Lady Olivia started this post.
Finally since I mentioned Luke a few times, two of the house concerts Siri played at the Bluff View were song swaps with Luke, and while the concert could be a post in itself; here's a link to listen or buy this unique evening.
And a video of the second song swap in Feb. 2022 four years later. Yes we love that our series kind of pushed these two souls together.
Hope you loved the journey ... remember to follow us and as always Good Music has NO Expiration Date, so if you are listening to this ten years from now, it still will be awesome music. If this is a first time visit, check out the index of themes for past editions.
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