Something that I'm not used to talking about when it comes folk albums is the groove. Folk (at least good folk) usually has pretty strong melodies, but these melodies are often confined to the vocal work and aren't always complimented by a memorable counter amongst the accompanying instruments. It's a confrontation with these expectations that snared my attention (and held it!) upon hearing Michael Beharie's "Ghost" off his most recent album, Promise.
Michael is best know for his avant-chamber work with groups like Zs, and there is a lateral quotient of this indubitable verisimilitude embedded in a song like, "Ghost" whose melody is half grounded in sea-shanty and half held aloft in gloomy pop reflection a la the Cranberries's "Zombie." This melody is achieved by a latice-like folding of Michael's lonesome croon, dipping in and out of a lyrical guitar strum, and basking in the flow of a cool spiral course, siphoned from the breath of flutist Laura Cox. Stepping into the stream of this song is like wading into the River Styx, and feeling one's spirit pulled like a splitting strand of grass between the poles of each bank, life and death mingling in a tranquil flow outside of time.
This sense of inner-circulation and mysical circadian stir also gives songs like the groaning patter of "Silo" its peculiar sense of weightless gravity and eidolon imprint and assures the effervescence of the accommodating outward-seeking unveiling and distant calls of songs like "Thakur."
It's not all ephemeral though; and there are times when Promise is more embodied in the moment than others, such as on "Lolo" where the bass guitar is so real and forward that you can almost feel it press into the dirt below you with each strum like it was your own footprint compressing the body of the Earth. Then there is "For Days" which has a familiar but not parochial form, following an intuitive blueprint to shape a snappy powerpop profile that would not be out of line for an acoustic Evan Dando B-side.
Promise is most distinct, though, when it is allowing its physical nature to intersect with its spiritual aspirations, such as on "August," whose twisting rhythms doubles back on themselves in an infinite hourglass shape as the sands of time stream from its navel with silty synths and guitars guiding the arching spillage of this ruptured chrono-vessel in its fateful, trusting curl.
When the certainties of your life have been buried by doubt and you find yourself wandering a desert of foreclosures without a drop of rain to wet your tongue, any small trace of life can become a beacon of hope. Music that is attached to its physicality without becoming overwhelmed trenchant sense of immediacy can be the sign towards mecca that you need to leave such a barren place. Finding the right path for you takes time, and taking the time a situation requires to understand all of its dimensions appears to be what Promise is all about. Open your heart to the message of transcendence and the lively way Michael presents his codas and you might just find the direction you are looking for.
