The Sixth Great Lake
Up the Country

I confess my snobbery. I confess I have a weakness for albums that are hard to find, the ones you order from your trusted dealer first, without tangible results, and then, after various hesitations, you decide to scout for in remote shops on the outskirts of England. I like these albums, especially if they turn out to be of a candid and disarming simplicity. This is also why I am madly in love with the first album by Sixth Great Lake, released in 2001.

A dealer from Leicester sent it to me, along with the shop's tote bag and a handwritten thank you card: "thank you for your order". I was moved.

And I was even more moved after listening to the fifteen songs of this "Up The Country". Wild American folk: drums (often brushed), acoustic guitars, bass, wurlitzer, harmonica, cello, different intertwining voices, rustic lyrics of those who have lived in the countryside for a long time and spend days in the home garden.

"The hippies are back", wrote Will Sheff reviewing this record years ago, before becoming the celebrated leader of Okkervil River. "It's music that doesn't sound like anything else released after 1980". All true: you have to go back to the Sixties-Seventies to really place this record in its natural habitat. All true. Even though, looking closely now, there is something that sounds a bit like the Sixth Great Lake, and it's Okkervil River.

You listen to "Blue" and understand where the melancholy vein of the best early Sheff (the one of "Red") comes from, with wine-soaked melodic nuances and a hoarse voice (and lyrics that have a blues wink: "My girl don’t lie in bed with me anymore, she’s always out the door like everybody else"). You listen to "Across The Northern Border" and understand where the folk underpinning of a "Song For Our So-called Friend" comes from. You listen to it all and understand where that mix of country and tavern rock with friends comes from.

But "Up The Country" doesn't find its reasons only in certain Okkervil anticipations (cover included). It finds its reasons in the serene and nostalgic atmospheres, in the epic slowness of "The Ballad Of A Sometimes Traveller", in the light brevity of "Cannon Beach" with its flute phrasing, in the sunny hill landscapes, in the harmonica lines of "Spin Your Wheels", which must have said something to the more bucolic Bright Eyes. For a summer in the countryside, all grass and guitar.

The second album by Sixth Great Lake was released only on vinyl. You can order it on their website, which hasn’t been updated for years now, while the band's work has now wound down: the main project of three of the five members, The Essex Green, occupies most of their time. But that's another story, a New York story, which doesn’t taste of the countryside, doesn’t smell of grapes, and is too easy to find.