MICAH P. HINSON - And The Gospel Of Progress

An upward movement, a bird taking flight. It begins the way a fairy tale might, synthetic textures and flute, then that voice comes in, a voice that feels like you've already heard it a thousand times. And yet it's the first time, because this is a debut for Micah P. Hinson, by now on the lips of all those neo-prewar-post folksters we find ourselves surrounded by these days. Let's not kid ourselves: ever since the 90s, this business of folk revisited, rechewed, resurrected, decontextualized, pushed into the avant-garde, keeps getting to us because, in cases like this one, it has the power of a kind of pop that grazes the ever-taut strings of emotion. It hits where it hurts, with a subtle pleasure. Excellent songs with an attitude that is both child and mother of the present moment, records made by authors in the truest sense of the word, who have chosen a partly folk garb for their poetic world. It only took a handful of names to bet on, Will Holdam, Bill Callahan and more recently Devendra Banhart, to lend meaning and lustre to something that, as usual, is partly invention and partly a sign of the desires of those who make music, listen to it, sell it, or write about it.

Micah is very young, but he writes with a perfect sense of economy and immediate melody. He has a recognizable voice even though it recalls Smog in a strikingly similar way, along with that capacity to grow passionate, hold back, and sink into intimacy that belongs to the great singer-songwriters. In his favour he also has a tormented biography, pseudo-maudit literary leanings, and the Earlies (of "Gospel Of Progress"), who coat these gentle structures with arrangements carefully designed to bring out the pathos and nuances of the songs. Upward, suspending in classicism these hummingbird-songs, ruffled with desire.

"Close Your Eyes" introduces the series of crescendos, the central musical figure of this record. Here, as elsewhere, it's a matter of progressive instrumental layering: synth, Fender Rhodes, acoustic guitar, female voices, strings, electric guitars, drums that kick into a march, while the electrics climb and the intensity announces the opening of hearts. As in "Beneath The Rose", fast-arpeggiated Cohen, plucked country double bass, emotional slide guitar, doubled acoustic guitar, accordion, piano rolling along as if Glass were jamming with Black Heart Procession and together they'd found a bit of warmth. I can't count how many times I've instinctively linked this song to the person who's swept me off my feet these past few days, forgive the personal aside, but it's just to give you the idea.

Then the crescendos keep coming: "Don't You (Part 1&2)" is the first piece of a Tom Waits-style ballad, with a simple, repeated structure that, through a very indie bridge of plucked notes, spills out into an epic finale, a wall of sound that hands the intimate over to the choral.

This religious feeling, at once contained and expansive, which tints every step with sincerity, contracts in other episodes, like the Oldham-esque "At Last, Our Promises", mournful yet wide open to drama with a subtly cinematic eye, while the chaos of the orchestra paints the scene of a fall: "Yeah, he is a cinematographer". The Black Heart Procession echoes return in the waltz of "Stand In My Way", though Micah always seems to carry a ray of sunlight on his brow, even when staging nocturnal flights. And what to say of "Patience", despite its immense simplicity one of the record's high points, perhaps because here Micah finally scrapes at his voice, backed by four acoustic chords, a bed of organ and a few scattered piano notes, until the track rears up Mogwai-style, derailing its Waits-like intentions.

The closer, "The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea", is detachment, like watching the season's last flight on the horizon. Release, relaxation, electric guitar chimes, strings settling down, organ warming up and announcing the movement, slow drums, choirs and piano dragging the actor away after his aside, leaving the stage empty. The audience suspects these are his emotions too, the applause ends, they leave the hall and flow back into the lobby, then everyone ends up outside the theatre: it's a great flock of birds you see coming out. For the season's last flight.

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18/12/2006