DENISON WITMER - American Foursquare

Since that "Are You A Dreamer?", with Don Peris of Innocence Mission producing and Sufjan Stevens as a guest, introduced him to the small (at the time, at least) audience of the most spiritual and "whispered" Americana, Denison Witmer has progressively refined and smoothed out his intimate songwriting, culminating here in a collaboration with Thomas Bartlett, who certainly leaves a clear mark on this "American Foursquare" (arriving seven years after its predecessor). Among the collaborators we again spot Don Peris, as well as William Fitzsimmons, rounding out the picture of Witmer's reference scene.

Echoing through the new old house where Denison's family now lives, in that Lancaster, PA, where the songwriter was born and raised, are the pointillist, elusive arrangements ("Birds Of Virginia") that are Bartlett's trademark. As always, Witmer's songwriting is extremely simple, both in composition and lyrics, and it's his extreme sensitivity that remains the true value of this album - one that the arrangements know how to ennoble (even on somewhat rougher tracks, like "Confident Sensitive Child"), reining in Denison's sometimes all-too-"exposed" expressiveness ("Catalina Love").

Other great flashes of inspiration include the intro of that last track, which seems to replicate instruments coming to life inside an abandoned house. As is typical, the addition of strings in this context never weighs down the album's songs in the slightest (the lovely, Stevens-esque "Robin").

At a tumultuous time that is also one of great collective rebirth for the United States, "American Foursquare" sounds far bigger than its stated aim of being an emotional account of a move from the city back to one's hometown. A prime example is the record's best track, "Roseanne", which seems to offer a positive way out for a Kozelek song (the same goes for "Simple And True").

It's hard to listen to the songs on this record without thinking of the faces of ordinary people protesting in the streets of American cities, and that too speaks to the record's power to capture the heart and conscience of the common feeling.

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12/06/2020