Jeff T Byrd - Nighty Night
Nighty Night
Jeff T Byrd
EP
Experimental
Jeremy Sheehy
December 23, 2021
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November 30, 2024
Tracks in this feature
Tracks in this release
The world at large is helplessly enamoured with the USA. Be it by its paradisiacal facade or by the sheer amount of dark innards that lurk underneath that surface; the violent undercurrents within its vast history. These darker paths can sometimes be hard to find, obscured through guilty obfuscation and a lack of historical preservation. But OId Saw may have found a way to chart these locations once again in an incredible reflection on New England. The gothic tales of Americana find a discordant song in this release, a haunting journey towards an uncertain destination, via Dissection Maps. Old Saw slowly illustrates an ominous atmosphere over 36 minutes, leaving the listener down hangdog roads with guitars, chimes, and bagpipes to keep them company.
Sleeps With Dice begins this despondent journey. It immediately thrusts the listener with its glacial arrangement of plucking and chiming instrumentation that carves the path ahead of them, yet there is something unnatural going on. Shot through with a buzzy drone, dipping guitar rhythms stretch out like the listener’s elongated shadow in the hot, dusty sun. The whining, twinkling instrumentation conveys a superstitious energy, markings on posts and unwelcoming collectives of sullen people. The re-emerging guitar pushes you forward...
Singing Loom continues building upon the rustic tone. Within its 7-minute length, the listener treks along with drawling instrumentation, accompanied by bellowing harmonicas and bagpipes. There's a soothing air to the breath instruments. There's a strength to be gathered, but as the track pushes on and these wailing whines find no real catharsis, we are reminded of our being in land of the 'free', sun rays stretch out over either desolate or destroyed land. The listener has nothing to rely on but the passing of the days. These paths are not easily traversed.
This is then followed up with the flickering guitars and weary pedal steel on Dealt In Silver, as a dry valley stretches on the back of sleepy notes. As the pedal steel stays within the listener’s close vicinity, the atmosphere gives way to heavier bells – ominous; funereal in their numb ringing, bodies pile up. Death is a part of the everyday. The drawling folk-ambient instrumentation never loses this sense of sprawl, the wasteland bewildering in its immensity.
Revival Hearing signifies a turning point. Its rambles of chime and guitar don’t exactly play into that darker threshold, with only the peeling drone limping on amid rolls of plucked strings. Its tone positive, but its layering almost suffocating. Singing Loom had this same positivity to it, but the thrum in this track is unmistakably unique. Society thrives as best it can, people come and go. Civilisations grow under the wide maw of the blistering sun, homely notes curling from guitars.
Measured Mile End then volleys the listener into the harrowing last legs of this journey. Immersed within layers of droning Americana. Warning sounds screech through past the gritty bassline, gnarled in blues-y noodling riffs. The listener is pulled downwards as the overall atmosphere becomes anxious. Despite this, there is the feeling of an incoming conclusion. As if the road is slowly turning dark once again, that great land is being shrouded as another day closes. Darkness will cut off that sprawl, and the listener will be left alone once again.
The whirring sample in the closing track almost speaks to technological progression as the home strait opens up. Last Rings is filled with clattering chimes and percussion, but lacks the dread of earlier tracks, allowing the listener a mite of comfort after a hard road, even toying with the idea of a life detached from this strange existence. Things move at a ramshackle pace with rapid-fire plucked strings that pitter patter with a light percussive energy, but the tone has brightened, the moon lighting the valley. A dark and lost history fades again behind us down a long, winding road.
Through the looming melodies of Dissection Maps the scarred landscape of New England is exposed. It avoids the easy roads, opting for the harsh realities of these lands through relentless drawling instrumentation. The atmosphere is stern for the most part. Flickers of light are snuffed out in visions of hardship, death and superstitious fear, but it allows for emotional truth to shine through.
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