William Tyler‘s folky Americana has graced releases by Lambchop and Silver Jews as well as his increasingly assured solo releases. Marisa Anderson treads similar ground on her own records, although the recent collaboration with drummer Jim White did lead down some exciting improv avenues.
The eight tracks presented on Lost Futures rely on the interplay of Marisa and William’s differing approaches to the guitar, William often painting broader textures with a Telecaster while Marisa’s acoustic dips in and out, the warm resonance and subtlety providing sunset soundtracks replete with a contentedness when things spread out and the space shines through.
With the able assistance of producer Tucker Martine‘s drumming and Gisela Rodriguez Fernandez‘s violin, they paint welcoming portraits of backroads America, but with just a hint of the sort of Chicago reinventions of Pullman and Rex. Funnily, there is a touch of “Albatross” about the opener “News About Heaven” in that sleepy lullaby slide that smiles down upon you. Tucker’s production here is lovely, picking out the details and allowing the different moods to filter through. There is even a hint of the room acoustics evoking the imagery of the players grouped around, gently urging one another on.Some pieces are airier than others, and in “Pray For Rain”, there is even a touch of the Mexican vibe which was apparent in the Marisa Anderson and Jim White collaboration The Quickening. The other thing is, I keep hearing flashes of the semi-classical stuff that Maurice Deebank brought to Felt. I know it is an unlikely echo, but there is something similar in the slightly melancholy romanticism.
“Something Will Come” is where it takes a real change for the darker, the distortion and repetition bringing to mind a Spacemen 3 intro. Tucker’s drums really shake things up and there is an edge in the background that really swells as the length of the piece begins to take you over. It is an impressive change of pace which makes the Dirty Three-like “At The Edge Of The World” all the more dusty and desert-like, with Patricia Vásquez Gómez‘s quijada adding a touch of the mysterious. One of the enjoyable things about this album is working out who is playing what and how they intersect. The overlapping of the guitar textures differs on every track and thankfully, the tracks have plenty of time over which they can stretch and develop, be they sticking to a hypnotic circular rhythm or evolving gently. There is a touch of classical to some of the guitar playing, particularly on the deeper and rather profound “Hurricane Light”. The Telecaster lends quite a resonance to the bass element, while the nylon-stringed acoustic is more plaintive, as if telling the story while the electric textualises in their little dance of improvising steps.The two guitars inhabit different planes and together the results unfold in quite an emotional way, but with an air of familiarity that makes it really accessible. In fact, the meditative excursion that is the closing track “Haunted By Water” finds that familiarity being dragged into a kind of vortex from which it is only extricated as the album finishes.
Lost Futures is a sublime suite of tracks and proves just how imaginative and sympathetic the two players are. The assistance that comes from the violin and Tucker’s production can’t be overestimated, and between them all, they have produced a vibrant and diverse gem.-Mr Olivetti-
