Joan Shelley - Over and Even - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Joan Shelley returns with InchThe SpurInch her first new album in three years. The twelve-song set is a profound meditation on light and darkness, recorded in the spring of 2021 at Earthwave Farm in the Kentucky countryside. James Elkington serves as co-producer (alongside Shelley) and the album features collaborations with Bill Callahan, Meg Baird and the British novelist Max Porter along with Shelley's musical partner Nathan Salsburg.

2019 . Much of this album was recorded in Iceland. Breath warm from singing rises into frozen air. Atomized. A million bright blue crystals - the fractal branching of the lungs - drift back to earth. Radiant, refracting. Clear notes melt like perfect soft snow. Straight lines curve and curve again. Much of this album was recorded in Iceland, but Joan Shelley wrote these songs in Kentucky. That's the dirt clinging to their roots. The wind blowing through Osage orange and pine trees is the joy and ache and urgency of these songs. It's the silence and the music. It's the space between time and words and the stillness in Joan's voice. The world spins more slowly. Moss overtakes a fallen tree. Kentucky is where we plant seeds of regret and stay to watch them flower. Maybe Mark Twain said that Kentucky (always five years behind the times) was the perfect place to ride out the apocalypse. Maybe it's twenty years. Maybe it's apocryphal. That doesn't mean it isn't true. InchAnd oh, Kentucky Stays in my mind it's sweet to be five years behind That's where I'll be When the seas rise Holding my dear friends and drinking wine...Inch Maybe the world outside has already vaporized. Maybe we're already living on borrowed time. Nathan Salsburg's guitar pours out clean as water through his fingers, turning over every smooth stone. Bonnie InchPrinceInch Billy's harmonies stretch time tight enough to break without breaking. Joan's voice calls us back. Birds are singing outside. Insistent. Don't miss what's right in front of you. Joan Shelley's new record Like The River Loves The Sea. Produced by Sir James Elkington and Joan Shelley.

In December 2016, after more than a year of touring the world behind her 2015 LP Over and Even, Joan Shelley and Nathan Salsburg headed a few hours north to Chicago, where they joined Jeff Tweedy in Wilco's Loft studio for five days. Spencer Tweedy, home from college, joined on drums, while James Elkington (a collaborator to both Tweedy and Salsburg) shifted between piano and resonator guitar. Jeff added electric accents and some bass, but mostly, he helped the band stay out of it's own way. InchHe was protecting the songs. He was stopping us before we went too far,Inch Shelley says. The Loft proved essential for that approach, as it was wired to capture every musical moment, so no take was lost. If, for instance, some magic happened while Spencer added drums to a tune he'd never heard, or while Elkington tinkered behind a piano, the tape was rolling. Indeed, half of these songs are first takes. InchThe first time is always the best. That's when everyone's on the edge of their seats, listening to not mess it up,Inch Shelley adds. InchThey're depending on each other to get through it.Inch It's fitting that the resulting set is self-titled. These are, after all, Shelley's most assured and complete thoughts to date, with lyrics as subtle and sensitive as her peerless voice and a band that offers support through restraint and nuance. In eleven songs, this is the sound of Joan Shelley emerging as one of music's most expressive emotional syndicates.