ARTIST: A Weather
TITLE: Cove
LABEL: Team Love Records
GENRE: Indie
BITRATE: 182kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 0h 45m total
RELEASE DATE: 2008-03-04
RIP DATE: 2008-02-28
Track List
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1. Spiders, Snakes 5:17
2. Shirley Road Shirley 5:42
3. Screw Up Your Courage 4:27
4. Small Potatoes 4:31
5. Hanging Towers of Baltimore 5:40
6. Pilot's Arrow 5:38
7. Oh My Stars 4:05
8. Pinky Toe 7:04
9. It's Good To Know 3:30
Release Notes:
rom deep within the confines of the storied Portland mist comes indie-folk
outfit A Weather and their debut album, Cove, out March 4th on Team Love.
A postcard from the green and gray environs of Portland, Cove is moody and warm,
rife with odes of looming loss, hopeful notes to self and hushed revelations
that speak directly to the yearning heart. Produced by Adam Selzer (M. Ward, The
Decemberists, Norfolk and Western), the songs on Cove are marked with an
intimacy so striking that it feels like youÆre eavesdropping on the pillow talk
of two forlorn lovers. Indeed, this is music to curl up with.
At the core of A WeatherÆs warm, soft-spoken sounds are the comely vocals of
frontman/singer/songwriter Aaron Gerber and singer/drummer Sarah Winchester.
With remarkable restraint and understated delivery, their harmonies trace each
other, cross paths, diverge and intertwine, undercutting the gravity of
AWeatherÆs material. ôIn one way Cove is a catalogue of closely observed moments
and particulars,ö says Gerber. ôIn another it is an oddly inspirational document
of transience and entropy and trying to keep yourself together when things are
falling apart.ö
Cove swells with layers of sound (organs, Mellotron, percussion) and then drifts
downward into moments of sparse acoustic guitar or a single piano. WinchesterÆs
drumming (using only an upturned bass drum, a snare and a cymbal) is rock solid,
uncluttered and highly musical. Meanwhile, guitarist Zach BoyleÆs meandering,
sinewy lines of electric guitar have been compared to a babbling brook û and why
argue with that?
It's been a relatively short journey from A WeatherÆs first house show to their
current status as the new kids on the Team Love block û though a journey crammed
with hard work, dedication, empty bottles of Gatorade, Fleetwood Mac-style love
affairs, tears, laughter and a great deal of excitement. The band came into its
current line-up û Gerber, Winchester, Boyle, guitarist Aaron Krenkel and bassist
Louis Thomas û over the holiday season of 2006.
In a yearÆs time, A Weather has received generous media buzz for its "lush
folk," "bedroom bards," "quiet folk-pop," ôdarkly fuzzy, warm and tender
acoustic folk-pop" and "hush-pop.ö TheyÆve shared the stage with the likes of
Bright Eyes as well as PortlandÆs The Builders and the Butchers, Gregory Miles
Harris, Laura Gibson and Bark, Hide and Horn. And A Weather was signed to Team
Love, who released the groupÆs first seven-inch record, "The Feather Testö w/
ôOne More One Night Stand," in the spring of 2007.
As for Cove, thereÆs a great amount of wit and subtle humor accompanying all of
the sad stuff, while there is always a sense of self-consciousness woven
throughout. ôSpiders, Snakesö opens the record with an immediately catchy drum
riff, joined by a plodding, mournful Fender Rhodes. The song explores ideas of
faith and doubt with a see-sawing verse melody, a beautifully souring chorus and
a bridge section that rhymes ôcinnamon bunsö and ôwater guns.ö ôPinky Toe,ö an
undulating opus of a song, is concerned primarily with feeling like a stubbed
toe. ôScrew Up Your Courage,ö a swinging, almost sexy-sounding song, ends with
Gerber and Winchester crooning the phrase "Ask me again," over and over, in a
unison that goes out of phase with itself only to rejoin perfectly for the
finale. ôPilot's Arrowö uses images of airports, arrows and shooting people out
of cannons to describe a failing relationship. ôIt's Good To Knowö is
beautifully straightforward, with lyrics taking note of how nice it feels to
check things off of lists, of watching small birds at the side of an English
lake, of shopping carts with a wobbling wheel, and basically just how things
are. The song and the record culminate in the final chorus: "It's good to know
when good things will arrive."
ItÆs good to know that A Weather û and Cove û have arrived.