SOUNDTRACK: FLEET FOXES-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #178 (March 9, 2021).
I absolutely loved the first Fleet Foxes album. The harmonies were just outstanding. And then after a couple more records, Robin Pecknold pretty much made Fleet Foxes a solo project. Since then I have found most of his songs to be really pleasant, but not all that memorable.
I’ve listened to the new album, Shore, a few times and only two or three songs really stand out for me.
But the sound of this Tiny Desk is amazing.
“I’m Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes. Thank you so much for asking me to find the tiniest desk I could, and sing unadorned for the first time in too long.”
With his guitar and that unadorned voice, Robin Pecknold performs four songs from Fleet Foxes’ 2020 album, Shore. … Robin wrote the songs while driving in the Catskills and (as you hear on “Going-to-the-Sun Road”) Montana, a place that feels like home.
“Going-to-the-Sun-Road” is a quietly picked song. His voice sounds great and the melody is really lovely. I think my favorite part might be the end where he sings in Spanish.
He gets an amazing sound from his acoustic guitar. I can’t get over how softly he seems to be playing the strings and yet how full it sounds.
“Sunblind” is the catchiest song on the new album. I hadn’t realized until reading this that it
pays homage to some of the greats that we’ve lost — some more recently, including David Berman and Richard Swift, and some long gone but still influential, like Elliott Smith, Curtis Mayfield, Jimi Hendrix and Judee Sill.
“Featherweight” is a reasonably catchy song–especially at the end where he has those repeating three note melodies.
“I’m Not My Season” ends he set with a slow, pretty ballad. The song has some very nice melodies in it.
I’m curious how long it will take for this album to really resonate with me.
[READ: March 31, 2021] “Grandmother’s House”
The September 3, 2007 issue of the New Yorker contained several essays by their writers about the subject “Family Dinner.”
Nell Freudenberger was on a flight to Rochester–her grandmother had just died. She was reading Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide which was set in the Sundarbans in Bangladesh: “one of the last places on earth where humans are occasionally consumed by tigers.”
A young couple sat next to her on the plane and the woman said she was born in the Sundarbans and that her grandmother still lived there. They exchanged contact information and the woman, Farah said that the next time she was returning to Bangladesh, Nell would have to go.
Farah had considered staying in a local guest house, but her nanu and auntie were insulted that they would even think of not staying with them. (more…)
