Spokane
Able Bodies

If I were to grant myself a day just for me, going up the Grand Union Canal, or perhaps hitchhiking along the State Road 131 Cagliari-Sassari, I would choose an album like this to accompany me. Thus, under the headphones emanating notes capable of radiating or enhancing the quality in the images of these almost motionless compositions, which appear unexpected, different. You immediately notice that they require a different kind of listening, not too demanding but entrancingly cradled towards something originating from that other inaccessible side, the one that once was, or could have been.
Not for nothing, the work in question emerged following a car accident involving the band members, on the North American highway, who, though spinning inside like in a tin can, came out unscathed.
This, like much of the modest collection here at Monte Pedraelighe, I discovered by chance during those purchases made with the desire to find by chance, but also due to the limited funds, a second-hand, low-cost buy for one, two, and at most three pounds.
From here, the reader can already deduce that we are not talking about mainstream, about artists who fill stadiums or arenas.

These Spokane, I can confidently say, will always remain unknown to the vast public for their very personal adherence and composing of their experimental folk, creating sonorifically infused atmospheres of melancholic mystery for the things, the objects, and the souls contained within. A landscape is blown inside you, making you perceive the vastness that the light infuses, showing to the eyes of those who want to see its infinite aspects.
But let's get to the pieces, to the entire work, their fourth effort Able Bodies put together by Rick Alverson the leader and creator (bass, guitars, lead vocals); Molly Kien (cello); Maggie Polk and Karl Runge (violin); Ben Swanson (vibraphone); and Courtney Bowles (drums, vocals). A collection of seven well-blended tracks caressed by Alverson's whispered voice, reputed to be endowed with remarkable poetic compositional skills, the meaning of the words in his singing is imperceptible, not making it any less enjoyable.
It seems he doesn't want to take anything away from the strings and the rest of the instruments, if not to accompany us compactly on a vast path where the many possibilities, never clear, we unknowingly continue to follow. All this wandering endures from one track to another, leaving small indicative details, delineating contours, tracing the limit of forms through rhythm, and offering us solace in unusual melodies, alternately produced by the backup singer, cello, a metallic ticking, the vibraphone.

A work I'd place there between Low and Grandaddy, an album that needs its moment, because I don't travel the SS131 every day.