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October 05, 2004
None More Black
Black Forest/Black Sea - Blackbird On A Gray Sky
Black Forest/Black Sea are Jeffrey Alexander and Miriam Goldberg (not respectively, i.e. Miriam does not refer to herself as Black Sea) and they make some sweet despair-folk, I'm not going to lie to you. This song is a walk in the woods behind your house, through sunny glens and shady copses, back back back until you're in a place that you can't recognize at all. The main ingredient here is Miriam's gorgeous voice, and a repetitive but deliciously plucked acoustic guitar phrase- however, a violin also swirls its way through, and the drums leave a sort of sticky residue after each thumping beat. The entire thing quietly caterwauls (bear with me) itself into an intense heat-death by the end, unraveling into its constituent parts like an overworked wind-up toy. BF/BS are, like the art-slaves in the Jewelled Antler Collective, bewilderingly prolific, but also not widely distributed. The self-titled album that this song comes from is now sold out (due to be re-issued in the winter), but you can always snag their imrovised album or their split cd, if 'Blackbird' catches your ear. All of their stuff is this good, or better. [BUY]
Posted by matt at October 5, 2004 08:00 AM