Revisionist Western

On December 2, when I saw the new, surprise Tiny Vipers EP "American Prayer" pop up in my Bandcamp feed, I had a full body visceral reaction, like whatever the exact opposite of a panic attack is. I was alone, but I instinctively looked around the room, wanting to announce to someone that Jesy Fortino had just put out new music and everyone in the world needed to stop what they're doing and recognize the gravity of this occurrence. Tiny Vipers' 2009 album "Life on Earth" is one of the most intricately woven folk albums of the 21st century. It's sparse in its sound, though Fortino's achingly human voice, aided by her confessional lyrics, manages to fill up all the space left over by her minimalist guitar playing, giving the album an atmosphere that is as warm as it is suffocating. Since then, she's put out an excellent collaboration with Grouper called "Mirroring" along with some more ambient and electronic work, but nothing that returne...

I’ve spent a not insignificant part of my life wonder what makes a song sad. Is it... Wait, hold on. Real quick, before I go wandering down this "sad song" rabbit hole: this record is one of the best things I’ve heard all year.  Okay, back to the sad song question.  The obvious answer is that lyrics set the emotional tone for a song. Writing about something sad makes a song sad. But Sammy Hagar has written songs about breakups and when I hear them I don’t think “hey, this breakup song makes me sad,” I think “oh good, whoever this song is about doesn’t have to be around Sammy Hagar anymore.” Most sad lyrics don’t feel like they’re about a specific person or incident or experience. They feel like generic platitudes that could be written by anyone about anything. Put more bluntly, Sammy Hagar lyrics aren’t sad because even when Sammy Hagar writes about something sad, his lyrics lack any sort of specifics or details that would suggest the vulnerability necessary t...