“Junkyard”
from the album Hello, Dear Wind
2006
iTunes
MP3 – “Junkyard” [right-click/save-as]
The story of Hello, Dear Wind is just beginning to unfold. It is a rousing tale of two coasts, good friends, and a school of amorous water dwellers. What began in Maryland after the record’s author was bitten by a horny fish in the throes of passion and ended in Washington State with a CD about to release for the second time only brings us up to speed and familiarity. Still then, it should come as no surprise that an album packed full of songs overflowing with life, color, and imagination would warrant a re-release; the stories in the songs themselves take more than one listen to understand too.
What started with Baltimore lake swimmer and songwriter Michael Nau and a handful of demos has blossomed into the soulful folkfest of acoustic strumming and tambourine jangles known simply as Page France. A whirlwind on plastic, their sophomore effort’s picturesque storytelling regale shimmers brightly with the rattling surprise of a John Darnielle line and the jaunty freedoms of the Arcade Fire or Polyphonic Spree. Combustive melody and layers of harmony bind together and float with the whimsical, yet emotive pairing of Nau and his swooning counterpart Whitney Mcgraw. Sometimes hyper, sometimes solemn, but thoughtful through and through, Nau sings to people, deities, and animals alike as his Piper-ish march crosses a kaleidoscopic foreground while his troupe’s lush backing tacks on mile after mile.
While they occasionally trip the lights apocalyptic, Page France’s quintet move through the jubilant Hello roster in a flurry of major chords that ring triumphantly, aiding and abetting the introspect evoked when minors are enlisted. At the outset this platter seems to live in a majestic celebration of momentous crescendo, but some of the lyrics may suggest that parts of this world are a chaotic opposite. Somewhere right around the center of this album is a theme that runs like veins from the first track to the last. What is never mentioned in Page France press material, but spoken of so often in media reviews is the amount of religious imagery flowing through this body of work. Nau’s flakey voice is peppered over songs that specifically and symbolically cite age old Sunday School tales all the while stretching the range of outward praise and seeming despair. While it is easy to focus on all of the theological allusion and Sufjan Stevens comparisons, the heart of this album actually lays a few steps off of the commonly beaten path. “It had a lot to do with the time and place of that record,” Nau remarks via e-mail. “I wasn’t certain of anything, and I was younger than ever, trying harder to figure it all out. There was this dualist battle going on between my physical and spiritual and I was curious about it all. I didn’t know what it was. A lot of people perceive the record to be leaning to a side, but I never intended it to. I wrote that record from a state of most uncertainty.”
The opener, “Chariot,” inches out slowly from the gate, filling in on top of itself before breaking open into a frolicking chant of conclusive request. With chiming xylophone taps and lyrics that inform as much as they request, playing catch up is a necessity not realized until it is too late. Driven by a bass drum that pops itself into a marching snare, the song shifts and meets Mcgraw in the middle who is waiting to carry out Nau’s requisitive call. The maiden track ushers in a standing room only album full of barbs and roses, each looking to be understood in their fated path. Met with its kindred bookend, the disc closing “Feather,” the former seems to boil with optimism in its resolute cause, while its cohort is more somber, showing a knowledged growth in our orator as he looks to have had his request appeased and is now employed by those called upon in his original appeal.
Working now from the inside out, we find on the rest of the record songs of exposition and exploration; a plenary link between Nau’s call for lenience in “Goodness” and his loving attachment in the latter stanza of “Dogs.” Page France’s collective self-production talents add salt to the sea of words that Nau’s tides are washed in from. Wind is a topic, as are feathers, a wrecking ball and a circus ringleader. The whole adventure manages to get your head nodding and foot tapping as its topics teeter on the outer rim of eternal ascension. Among recurring reference to angels, the songsmith himself even takes the voice of one or two along the way.
That’s not to say that Nau is obsessed with death, he hardly touches the stuff, its more along the lines of a curiosity in the mechanics of finalizing events. Interestingly enough as lucid as lyrics like, “Turn the vessel upside down/ Let us swim or let us drown,” or “Circus Composer could you write this all down?/ You let us get closer/ You let us be found,” sound, Nau’s true intention seems to have been the reverse. “I didn’t want there to be much certainty in that album and that is something that I may have done a poor job on. Perhaps I made myself sound a bit more sure than I actually was. We wanted to create an organic sound of stress and wonderment by using toys and playful words. It came out sounding more free than stressed. I can’t really figure it out.” Whether these are mentions of the rapture or everyday struggles magnified by alliteration is a paradox that makes the record intricately beautiful. Nau is able to bounce between statements that are distinctly cryptic and utterly matter-of-fact with an effortless delivery that seems as natural as everyday conversation.
In all, Hello is an enthralling ride through the mind of its curator. It may be easy to concentrate on the wonderfully raucous moments of this record, but in reality it is mostly comprised of mid-tempo confessionals. These are the songs where Nau’s prowess shines through. His rotating first person voice and changes in angle breathe lung-fulls of sentiment and raw understanding into Hello. When he says, “I’m as heavy as a feather…Halleluiah,” all supposition is curbed long enough for him to be felt simply as an artist, which doesn’t seem like too much to ask. For Nau, the album seems less about sacramental content and more about finding truth in the answers that he thinks he has. “It eventually has to wear you out, you know? Initially, I was a bit discouraged by how much of the focus was upon those topics. I felt, and still do feel, that the record has a lot more to offer.”
A rallying ally, Seattle’s Suicide Squeeze Records appear to agree. The indie launch pad is set to re-issue the disc almost a year to the day after
its original release. Suicide Squeeze should offer wider distribution and the plucking of a few more strings on the band’s behalf than their hometown champion, Fall Records. Although the events seem to have happened quite quickly, Nau says the band is taking it all in stride, “The hop to Squeeze just felt like the natural next step to take. It’s great to know that the record, and forthcoming records, will be easier to find. We’re thrilled to be working with Suicide Squeeze, and are overjoyed about the forthcomings.”
With a double-EP set available now through Fall Records all those discovering Page France for the first time with Hello, Dear Wind‘s re-release will have plenty to seek out once the record makes its splash. While the EPs contain some material that predates the first edition of the album in focus here, nothing will end up on their new record, which Nau says is very near completion. His insights give the EPs an added bit of intrigue insofar as their difference to the Hello material, “Those EPs were made up of a lot of backlogged material. Those songs are just not us. We just wanted to do something different, and we felt that an EP would enable a sense of ballsyness, sonically and musically speaking. It was really just something that we needed to do before moving forward.” Chances are Page France will be rolling through one of your neighboring towns between now and Christmas in support of their supplemental release. With a bounty of material that will make Wise Men beam and blush, the Page France circus tent will erupt in song and surprise.