(2021) Elephant Micah - Vague Tidings


Review:
Creation is a strange process. Some things take longer than others. The Earth was created in seven days. Vague Tidings by Elephant Micah took a bit longer. Something in the neighbourhood of fifteen years. Which may tell you a thing or two about the creative process of Joseph O’Connell. How easy is it to write a set of songs, then leave them on the shelf for the next decade and a half while you try to figure out what they meant? The story of Vague Tidings is fascinating, make no mistake about that. O’Connell found himself in Alaska in his mid-twenties on an invitation from a folk singer he’d met, asking him on a tour of the 49th state. He accepted the proposal and ended up on one of those journeys people write books about. Travelling by way of a ramshackle RV, he wound up being chased by a bear while roaming a wilderness where nature is rugged, and civilization keeps destroying the dignity of the scene in the most unattractive ways. From playing a health food store in Anchorage to backyards and public libraries, O’Connell found himself touched by the physical majesty, and unbelievable industrialization. That yin and yang left him with much to consider. Two years ago, he finally convinced himself the time was right to finalize the material he had assembled, calling in Libby Rodenbough of Mipso and Matt Douglas from the Mountain Goats. Together they assembled something that not only reflects the northern locale, but the people populating it. At 7:33, “Glacier Advisors” opens Vague Tidings entering into a world unlike the world we think we know. The snare drum becomes dry and brittle as O’Connell sings, “Glacier movers/ Every view of the moon is now at your command/ The map in your hands was drawn long ago/ Now there’s no way of knowing.” Building on the mysteries of the region, the song builds and shifts, ending with a beautiful sax solo by Douglas. One of the themes that became clear to O’Connell was, “instead of celebrating progress, (I) was broadly anxious about where it was leading.” Again and again, we sense that what resembles progress is actually undermining the future. O’Connell notes, “The more it sinks in that the planet is at risk, and that we belong to nature rather than vice versa, the more relevant these songs feel to me.” There are points on Vague Tidings when you feel like you’re looking in on things that you shouldn’t necessarily be seeing, “Take one more sip from the little dipper before they close this place down.” These lines from “Return to the Abandoned Observatory” question whether this is a window into the future or a final glimpse of the past? There’s a rugged beauty to Vague Tidings that reflects the Alaskan wilderness, along with the unsettled feeling that things haven’t necessarily gone the way they should. That Elephant Micah is able to hold both up to the mirror for us to view illustrates the rare beauty of this collection.





Tracklist:
01 - Glacier Advisors
02 - Eastern Callers
03 - Pipe Diversions / Bored Auroras
04 - Occidental Blue
05 - Return to the Abandoned Observatory
06 - From Anti-Gravity
07 - The Cantor / The Labrador
08 - Vague Tidings


Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, lo-fi
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits