SOUNDTRACK: DAUGHTER OF SWORDS-Tiny Desk Concert #971 (April 29, 2020).
Alexandra Sauser-Monnig is part of Mountain Man (who did a Tiny Desk Concert some time ago). Daughter of Swords is her solo project. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is just as quiet and delicate as Mountain Man but with a little more instrumentation.
Though she’s joined by a full band here, Daughter of Swords was originally envisioned as a solo project for Alexandra Sauser-Monnig. … With a few hushed folk songs, the music was so eerily still, you could have heard a phone vibrate.
This has to be one of the quietest four-piece bands ever on Tiny Desk.
As “Long Leaf Pine” begins, all you hear is a low rumble–the floor tom from Joe Westerlund. Then Alexandra Sauser-Monnig begins singing quietly. Maia Friedman supplies soft backing vocals from time to time. Sauser-Monnig sings high and quiet and amazingly hits and even higher note before the end.
I like the sound of “Shining Woman” more. I think Alex Bingham’s bass stands out a bit more. Or maybe it’s because Friedman plays an electric guitar accompaniment. This song starts with a smattering of interesting percussion from Westerlund and while it is in no way loud, it moves faster than the previous song.
When Mountain Man was here, they talked about breakfast food. Alexandra reprises that by asking what people had for breakfast. Answers: a banana, a soft-boiled egg. Alexandra had a green smoothie and goes on about the large piece of toast she had. She doesn’t normally eat bread and this felt crazy to her [that should tell you all you need to know about Sauser-Monnig]. Bassist Alex Bingham says, “wild day so far.”
For the final song, “Prairie Winter Wasteland” Friedman plays the guitar to start this song–quietly ringing electric guitar. There’s an interesting bass line from Bingham on this song and Westerlnd is using a small whisk brush on the cymbals.
[READ: April 20, 2020] “Ride or Die”
This is an excerpt from the novel The Last Taxi Driver.
Set in Mississippi, this excerpt follows a cab driver with one fare, a man just released from prison.
He says they never tell him what they were in for, only that they just got out.
This man–white dude, mid-thirties, a few missing teeth, a few prison tats–is in a fantastic mood. He’s carrying a twelve-pack of Bud Light and asks to go to the Bethune Woods Project.
The driver says he didn’t even know these projects existed before he started driving a cab. Most of the other cab companies shun the projects. He knows that Uber is coming to town “I’ve never used an Uber and don’t understand how that works”), and he assumed they will shun the projects too. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 