Description
£22.99 – Dinked Edition #56
- Exclusive Green LP
- 2 x exclusive art prints 2 by illustrator Nick Dahler
- Signed & numbered
Limited pressing of 400
- The stone that’s buried: what the fruit is for.”So goes the title track fromPlum, Widowspeak’s forthcoming fifth album. The lineserves as an apt analogy for the record itself: the self-aware sweetness that the bandemploys to deliver the seed of a harder, sharper idea. Singer Molly Hamilton coats wryobservations in a voice as honeyed as the sun-ripened fruit, and Widowspeak havealways made a bitter pill much easier to swallow. From its opening strum, there’s apalpable warmth and familiarity to the music even as it hints at darker truths below thesurface, questions about inherent worth. What value and meaning do we assignourselves, our time, and how do we spend it?WithPlum, the songwriting partnership rooted in the creative rapport between MollyHamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas continues to expand on shared visions,delving deeper into what was always there: dusty guitars, ear-worm melodies, warmexpansive arrangements. Each entry to their catalog has marked a subtle reimagining ofWidowspeak’s sound, though perennial points of reference remain the same: 90’sdream pop, 60’s psych rock, a certain unshakeable Pacific-Northwestness. Speaking tothe timeless feeling of each, the albums continue to be discovered well beyond theirrespective PR cycles, made beloved by new listeners through word of mouth.More akin to the sunny spaciousness ofAll Yours(2015) than the darker, denserExpect the Best(2017),Plumcarries a sense of unhurried self-awareness. It feelscomfortable and lived-in: humble in structure, heavy on mood. Perhaps that cametaking time off from the touring grind, instead working full-time jobs and settling into therhythm of daily life in a small upstate New York town.Plumwas recorded over ahandful of weekends last winter by Sam Evian (Cass McCombs, Kazu Makino, HannahCohen) at his Flying Cloud studio in the Catskills, and was mixed by Ali Chant (PJHarvey, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius). In addition to Hamilton (vocals, guitar) andThomas (guitars, bass, synth), it features instrumental contributions by Andy Weaver(drums), Michael Hess (piano), and Sam himself (bass, synth).Plumnestles into theband’s canon like it was always there, but with new textures coming to the fore, like thepolyrhythmic pulse of “Amy” and “The Good Ones”, or the watery, Terry Riley-influencedtrack “Jeanie”The broader themes that run throughPlumare almost eerily prescient for the time of itsrelease, written and recorded in the eve of a global pandemic. Hamilton couldn’t havepredicted the relevancy of mesmerizing track “Breadwinner”, with its central analogy ofbread as time as money, or the song’s yearning pleas to a partner who’s “alwaysbringing their work home”. And on “Even True Love”, Hamilton acknowledges theimminent loss of those closest to us: “In the deepest wells, in the shallow sick/I can seeyou shaking in the great unknown/Will you learn to live with what you chose?/Even truelove, you can’t take it with you”. They’re songs for our time to be sure, butPlumreckons with existential pain that was always there, that will endure well beyond socialdistancing and into our collective new reality.Still,Plumisn’t weighed down by crushing angst. The approach is humble and frank,
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