Humming "in the quivering forest"

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 

It happened in a very ordinary way: an autumn night, a car on and “White winter hymnal” playing on the radio, slowly waking me up from the backseat slumber. While watching outside the window, I wondered which band from the Sixties was that and how I could have ever missed them until then. But I was wrong. It wasn't an old band but the most recent present from Seattle to us, after Jimi Hendrix and the grunge scene.

White Winter Hymnal from Grandchildren on Vimeo.

Songs from the wood. I know, the quote's taken from another group from the other side of the ocean but it well describes the first Fleet Foxes' album (of the same name): inside there are songs that drops like the sun upon the trees in the last hours of the afternoon, made of the whispering silence that floats in a forest  and rhythms that mirror our steps. The Fleet Foxes sound awkwardly familiar and comforting but they can also make you burst into tears because of their beauty, turn your heart upside down and fill your eyes with new colours and winding lines. Forget the typical character of the artist who has to be original and borderline  to be one: what matters here is the human being. We're talking about imperfect music, created by human beings for other human beings. You can hear a heartbeat pulse beyond the guitars, the piano and the golden vocal harmonies guided by Robin Pecknold's beautiful voice; these smiling songs dwelled in melacholy talk about very human things such as family, brother love (“He doesn't know why” and the graceful “Blue Ridge Mountains”), homeland (“Tiger Mountain peasant song” is named after a mountain in Washington) or apparently nothing (listen to “Heard them stirring”, magical and ethereal). It's too much. We're not used to such a warmth, to receive as a gift wonderful handweaved tapestries in a poor wicker basket – each of them carefully created and finished (the b-sides too, listen to “Isles”), each one cherishing a long lost story that makes you heart vibe (as does the british tradional ballad “False knight of the road”). They mainly sing and play for their own pleasure but we're welcomed in their homes and we can sit on the carpet and listen. We can find them gathered together, checking little percussions, mandolins or choruses, or one by one while presenting Bob Dylan covers (Robin Pecknold's White Antelope project) or whispering foggy and frail new tunes (Josh Tillman).

The Fleet Foxes unlock the access to another dimension where Neil Young and Joni Mitchell share their space with the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (who created the picture on their album's cover) and the dreamy animations of their videos, directed by Robin's brother Sean Pecknold and his creative team Grandchildren. Poetry, music and art melt one into the other and are constantly shared among them and their fans too, through the most ordinary web sources. 'Cause, after all, they're just young people like many others, who are interested in many different things and that like to surf Youtube looking for new music, share details about the recording sessions on Facebook and promote their own music on Myspace (their page is their official site) – maybe the evil World Wide Web isn't so black-hearted as they say, if it can join people and ideas on the opposite sides of the oceans.
From human beings to human beings: maybe it's just this simple thing that makes the Fleet Foxes so special.

I want to say goodbye with one of their first songs, taken from their unreleased Fleet Foxes EP. The sound is pretty different from the long-playing's and there's a quiet American backyard in summer instead of the wood. But the light beaming from these songs stays the same. Enjoy.

Agnese
www.thewhiteowls.blogspot.com

www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes

www.myspace.com/awhiteantelope

www.westernvinyl.com/artists/j-till.html

www.grandchildren.tv + www.flickr.com/photos/cerealandmilk