by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
David Nance has always seemed like something of a renaissance man. There’s a certain magic to his songwriting that gives his homegrown approach an instantaneous “classic” feel and yet there’s a divergence that keeps it from pastiche. From the strength and warmth in his voice to the welcoming charm of his signature bruised twang, there’s something so inherently familiar about it, his music like a balm of hard-worn comfort. It feels cliché to say he’s an “old soul” but it doesn’t seem out of place, the best of Nance’s music could sit side by side with the glory years of Neil Young, Merle Haggard, Leon Russell, and Tim Buckley. His music shares a reverence for a time long before his birth, but Nance feels very much a product of modern times, his crate digging influences merely a piece of the larger puzzle.
Since the days of his earliest recordings, mostly steeped in noise and abrasion, there’s always been a shimmering heart at the center, a balladeer buried beneath the distortion. His songs draw you toward the warmth, that core element of his charm readily apparent even as the dust had yet to settle. Over the span of a decade there’s been some refinement and what was once masked in acid-fried tape hiss and awash in caterwauling guitars has become more direct, distilled into something cleaner, but every bit as strong. David Nance & Mowed Sound, his first album for Third Man Records, is the next chapter of an already essential story, an evolution and expansion of his penchant for folk and country subversion. Much like the music itself, Nance’s band has evolved as well. What was once the David Nance Group has become Mowed Sound, a collective of Omaha’s finest that includes contributions from new members Dereck Higgins, Sam Lipsett, Pearl Lovejoy Boyd, and long-standing collaborators James Schroeder and Kevin Donahue. Together, the sextet has arrived at the most timeless music of their career.
Roots abound from the recording, both in sense of community and the essence of cosmic earthiness. Everyone is playing their part, the instrumentation flexible to the demands of the songs. Sprinkle in some piano and organ here and a bit of flute and auxiliary percussion (credits mention three occurrences of “Great Grandpa Harry’s piano bench”) there, everything in its place. Recorded by Schroeder around Omaha over the span of a couple years, the album is captured in stunning clarity, not so much that it’s polished, but the vision feels void of excess clutter. There’s a patience inherent in the songs that allows them to dip in and out of swampy blues one moment and soulful Americana the next. The record’s emotional tone and dynamic structures exist in a constant flux, from the brash piano stomp of the record’s opener “Mock The Hours” to the splintered heartbreak of closer “In Orlando,” and yet there’s a cohesive breeziness to the record’s sound. Mowed Sound are ready to boogie, even in cloudy weather.
It’s in that concept of the light that shines in the dark that much of the record resides, the beauty that emerges from the shadows. “No Taste Tart Enough” presents an evolution from stumbling detachment to deep love, the way passion and love can change a heart otherwise adrift. It’s a song about leaving the banality behind, being able to “blow them off” and spend our time with those we truly love. The transition from it’s rumbling acid folk into “Tumbleweed” feels natural, it’s the break away to greener pastures, a slowing down of time, a gentle swooning duet together with Lovejoy Boyd, resolved to “get tangled up in you”. The instrumentation is lush with soft flutes, acoustic guitars, and the campfire harmonies, a song that feels like it could be a lost folk standard. Life and love aren’t always so predictable though, as Nance notes on the sparse “Tergiversation,” a tune that explores the strings-attached nature of many relationships. Over a bouncy mix of bass, Wurlitzer piano, and a variety of shakers, Nance softly sings “I remember you smiling kind my way, I guess that was yesterday, and tomorrow I don’t know where you’re gonna be at”.
Mowed Sound isn’t all love and loss though, much of the record feels propelled by a need for change, the ability to move past the immovable, the desire to stay afloat at all costs. Thankfully, when it comes time to get moving, metaphorically and literally, they often opt to groove. Almost compelled by the boogie on songs like “Side-Eyed Sam” and “Credit Line,” these tracks seem to explore negative influences and economic struggle, respectively. “Side-Eyed Sam” could just be the breeziest song we hear all year, it feels like AM gold from half a century past, the song skipping along with the air courtesy of primitive plinking organ, slide guitar, harmonium, and a bevy of aux percussion. It’s probably the most layered track on the album and yet it feels light as a feather, a free rambling nugget of defiant character study. “Credit Line” on the other-hand finds its groove in hard-nosed blues and front-porch choogle, a delightful foil for Nance’s sardonic ode to empty wallets and the stranglehold they present.
There’s a sense that all these troubles can be thrown in the wind. The album’s centerpiece “Cut It Off” comes rambling down the dusty trail, hammering home the idea that while change isn’t always easy, it is often necessary. Mowed Sound present a laundry list of warning signs, from the humiliation of life to hungry roaches and moldy crust, delivered over a clackity cowbell assisted blues jaunt. When the dissonance of modern life feels too much to bear, David Nance offers a reminder in repetition, “if it’s all a hallway, and it ain’t a path,” before flipping the script, “if ya feel wrong here, If ya feel wronged here, get out of the hallway, and onto the path”. David Nance & Mowed Sound could just be that path forward.