I first heard this band while watching the phenomenal A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night. Its atmosphere and acting aside, the film has a fitting soundtrack full of gems which were yet-unknown to me. I recommend it if you're into horror movies more complex than scantily-clad teenagers, creative cinematography, or sad vampire stories.
This is the quintessential adolescent summer album. The first time I heard it, I was in the car with my parents, driving on Highway 24 from Lawrence, Kansas to Platte County, Missouri. I'd bought a copy at Love Garden when I was seventeen and my lovely parents were willing to listen to it with me on the drive home. It's remained one of my favorite albums, and I encourage you to listen to it only if you specifically enjoy softly energetic, folk-influenced, contemporary pop music.
While I love to reminisce, I should cut this short, for fear of becoming too sentimental or missing my train into Boston--I'm going to Spectacle Island today to read and spend time with my dear friend Adeline. Until later, dear reader!
- "I Can See Your Tracks" by Laura Veirs, from July Flame (2010)
This album, The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, often takes me back to high school. When I was a junior, my parents drove me all the way down to the Ozarks (a three-and-a-half hour drive each way) because of a Scholastic writing competition in which I'd taken part. They agreed to drive me to this over-the-top resort called Tan-Tar-A so that I could accept an honorable mention award or something like that. I remember feeling like it was a fairly ridiculous request at the time (even more so in retrospect), but my parents insisted on taking me down to accept my hard-earned piece of congratulatory paper. So they did.
On the way home, late at night, I remember laying in the back seat of my mother's red Honda Civic, listening to this album. The sleepiness I felt, mixed with the dreaminess of the album, made a weirdly strong and lasting impression on me. I can't hear this album now without thinking of driving through mountains and fields and dark rainy night.
Here is "And This Is What We Call Progress."
- From The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night (2010)
