Last week, I went out to Sauvie Island — a week too late. It was my yearly outing to pick blackberries for winemaking and the rain molded seven-eighths of the crop. Rather than the five-gallon bucket worth, I ended up with about four cups.
Today, instead of doing the dishes that would accompany winemaking supplies, I am cleaning after making pasta and a blackberry cobbler. The slightly overcast weather is making me want to put on Neil Young, but instead I chose the new Harlowe and the Great North Woods album. It was a good substitution. It makes me want to drink whisk(e)y, sit around a fire and dish with friends rather than do these dishes, but I don’t have any whisk(e)y, so I put some brandy in my coffee, and that should help with these haunting boy/girl harmonizing vocals that are coming from the speakers.
This isn’t the kind of music made for listening over a hi-fi. Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying it, but I’d rather have these folks over and have them play in my living room, feed them pirogues and white blackberry brandy at 148 proof, get drunk and make friends. This is music for sharing hot meals on cool evenings. This is soup-making music. Maybe it’s just the instrumentation, but the music reminds me a little of 16 Horsepower, which brings me to my first criticism of this album; it’s too goddamn short, like that first 16 Horsepower EP. If you’re going to make music this good, this powerful, perhaps you should wait until you have a full length album worth of material before you release it.
It was like my trip to Sauvie Island — the berries that were available for picking were delicious, there just weren’t enough of them. Or it would be like if I brought that cobbler to a potluck — it’s just a tease. It wasn’t long enough for me to finish the dishes. I had to repeat it. I wonder if they are trying to redefine the concept of album. The name should be changed to …The Great North Woods EP. That criticism aside, this is a band I’ll look forward to hearing more of, maybe a full-length platter that will take me to the other side of dishes.
End note: I’m a little drunk now and I can’t locate my coffee, maybe I’ll just finish the cobbler and call it a night.
– Chappy