Samamidon: All is Well
Bedroom Community
2008
Rating:


Samamidon's "All is Well" draws a through-line from the Appalachian mountain songs compiled by Cecil Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell in the essential work "English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians" to Nick Drake to Sufjan Stevens. The album, like Amidon's other two solo LPs, is a collection of traditional folk songs re-interpreted with new melodies and sacred minimalist arrangements to break the hearts of a whole new generation of listeners. Amidon's musicianship and the stellar production of Nico Muhly (Björk, Philip Glass) and Valgeir Sigurðsson (Björk, Bonnie "Prince" Billy) prevents the use of these old songs from ever being a gimmick, and it even finds the soul of them in a way the "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack didn't.

The sound of "All is Well" is the definition of timeless. Amidon's soft, tentative voice and loose phrasing are always perfectly suited to the arrangements. His quiet melancholy is especially appropriate for songs like "Prodigal Son," about a young man who returns home to acknowledge the wrong he's done, and the title track, in which a dying man finds relief in the weight of his sins finally being lifted.

"Saro," based on the traditional "Pretty Saro," is perhaps the best synthesis of Drake-like sorrow and Illinoisemakers orchestration. Amidon takes on the role of an immigrant who arrives in America in 1849 and grieves for the love he left behind. Amidon's voice cracks when he hits the high notes as he sings, "I wish I was a poet / Could write infinite / I'd write my love a letter / One she'd long understand / I'd send it by the water." Behind his aching voice, strings swell and woodwinds flutter until the heart is rended.

Songs like "Little Johnny Brown" are decidedly more modern. "First Lady of the Children's Folk Song" Ella Jenkins popularized "Little Johnny Brown" in the 1960s, but it was originally a chant for a children's game in the Georgia Sea Islands. With ambient noise and drum machines, Amidon brings something sinister out of the ditty. "Little Satchel" is otherwise a traditional arrangement of marcato horns, but a synthesizer hum serves as its backbone.

Amidon breathes new life into these songs, making them his own while paying proper respect to their heritage. The songs are moving and startling, the sound of truly, ageless music.

Posted Sunday, February 17, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/samamidon/all.is.well