TIME VAULT: SUMMER 2007

Everyone has albums that bring them back to the feeling of a certain time. i have a million of them. some of them i can't bring myself to listen to because it's just too weird, but some of them (a sufficient number less, i think) i can still get down to. this album is definitely one of those. i don't remember how i actually got a hold of this. i think i may have downloaded it a long time ago and then started listening to it multiple times a day months later. the opening notes of the very first song pretty much hold the essence of the time in which i was into this album; it was a summer in which i had no job and basically no rules. i really just hung out and nothing was really a problem or an issue and i also spent half of the time in Beachwood and took a lot of pictures. but the first guitar line in My Home is the Sea is smooth, quiet and has the feel of a mellow 1960s groove, which fit so well with my life at that point. the guitar playing on this whole album is pretty far out. Matt Sweeney did all of the music sans the drums and Will Oldham wrote and sang. i didn't know who Matt Sweeney was at all (and i still don't entirely know, actually) but he was in Zwan and played on a bunch of people's songs throughout time. i remember when my family was driving back from Canada, we had this on, i was reading Siddharthda and my mom made a comment that the vocal harmoies sounded like the Grateful Dead, and i hadn't listened to them at that point, but my mom told me i should. this is also what i was listening to a lot when i first started recording songs, and they definitely played a big part in the way the first group of songs i did sounded like.
Goat and Ram is one of the best. again, having a lot to do with how well done the guitars are on this album. but Will Oldham's voice is unparalleled. he just sounds exactly like he looks: a balding dude wearing overalls with a huge beard and a dirty shirt that you can't really tell how old he exactly is. the music isn't necessarily anything mainstream or catchy, but Will just sings a line that stays with me all day. and Rudy Foolish is such a good name.