Bonnie
'Prince' Billy
The
Letting Go (Drag City Records)
There are guitars, and strings.
Amid the swell of sound and anticipation, there is a voice
singing along, playing a part. The sound swells. Then the
Bonnie ‘Prince’ intones:
When the numbers / Get too high
Of the dead / Flying through the sky
Oh I / Don’t know why
Love comes to me
So begins THE LETTING GO. And so we realize
how much we’ve missed Bonny since the
last time, whenever it was. It's always a fine moment to hear
from him again. Through the years and the shape-shifts of
different albums, players and songs, the music of Bonnie
‘Prince’ Billy has proven to be an experience
of sharing: Bonny sharing the songs with
musicians for a new experience; Bonny sharing
the record with you. What do you think?
THE LETTING GO is an overwhelming undertaking.
As mentioned, there are strings – lovely charts that
do so much more than just trace chord changes up and down
the neck. Arrangements by Ryder McNair and
Nico Muhly are threaded throughout the record,
augmenting a simple quintet of players to provide a sixth
sense. The deceptive nature of his band is on display from
the top. “Filthy” Jim White is
known far and wide for his resource behind the drum kit and
he proves it song after song, with sensitivity that provokes
dynamic variety from skins, an acoustic depth to the room.
Paul Oldham’s bass is a feeling accompaniment
to Bonny’s guitar, played with brotherly
clairvoyance and constancy. Young Emmett Kelly’s
clean electric guitar lines roam within the web and suddenly
shine, are blues and folk and r’n’b in shifting
turn, guilelessly tactic and soulfully expressive. And up
front with Bonny is the bewitching
Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables. Her
vocal flights on those records can hardly prepare one for
the intimacy and empathy of her harmonies and other voices
on THE LETTING GO.
Recorded by Valgier Sigurdsson at the Greenhouse
in Reykjavic, THE LETTING GO songs and tales
are garlanded by the honest efforts of all these people in
an honest – as said above, a shared experience, to be
shared with you. Antidote and inspiration to life, love, loneliness
are sought; laughter is desired.
After all this, a set of songs that are lovely and take their
turn as a favorite; every day, another one.
Love comes to she and he that waits. And while they waits,
let ‘em know about THE LETTING GO.
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