Foot Ox – Bed Of Violets
Andy Warhol got his five minutes of pop fame, courtesy of Lou Reed and John Cale and somewhere down the line, in the not-too-distant future, every person in this world and every little town or village will have their own songs.
Let’s just hope that they won’t all be patriotic tunes or compositions about how well each of us manages to handle life. That’d just be untrue, and, frankly, boring. Let’s hope that those songs will display the kind of bravery that Foot Ox delivers in its songs.
Perhaps we’ll be fortunate to have songs about horrible tragedy, ordinary boredom and everyday sadness. That, at least, would be honest and would make writing one song about everything in the world a worthy mission.
Foot Ox’s “Bed of Violets” sounds like the slow tremor of anguish of every person dealing with the blues in every small town in the world. It’s a modern folk song of heartache and courage. It sounds like one stranger whispering a hidden truth to another before running away.
Winter Harvest – The Bridge
The world moves fast nowadays, and people try to outpace it. For the most part, this is not because they have nowhere to go they can’t wait. Usually, it’s not because of some burning ambition inside them that needs to be fulfilled.
Most people are simply constantly working to escape pain and having to think about it. And while it’s a natural instinct, artists don’t get that respite. It’s part of the contract, an essential part of the deal that they make, and payment for their gifts. Winter Harvest, a wise folk singer, knows this better than most.
Like royal scribes, chroniclers, and court historians, modern artists can’t afford to take a day off or avoid their gaze from the things that might emotionally impact them. In fact, their job is to detail not just what happened, but also how it felt.
Winter Harvest does a fantastic job of capturing grief and the joy of sharing a life with a loved one on “The Bridge.” This isn’t so much a sentimental jingle as it is a ritual. Winter Harvest’s folk song feels worn-in, dried-out, and beautifully lived. It’s the perfect tribute to a life companion and the kind of song that will resonate with all others who are feeling the same.
