by Dan Goldin (@paintingwithdan)
This past Friday saw the release of Across A Violet Pasture, the second solo record from Portland, ME’s Greg Jamie. A fixture of the Northeast experimental folk scene for the past two decades, Jamie has built an immaculate discography between the ramshackle darkness of O’Death, the spiritual folk of Blood Warrior, and most recently, his solo efforts. While it’s been seven years since he released Crazy Time, the songs on Across A Violet Pasture return us directly back to Jamie’s signature depth, a sound both of the natural world yet softly surreal. There’s a drift and a psychedelic fog to it all, but it’s focused and clear, with attention to textural detail and atmospheric resonance. The album is gentle yet dynamic, the shapes are never jagged but always transforming, blooming with new life, as weary as it may be.
Joined throughout the record by producer and multi-instrumentalist Colby Nathan (Dimples) and with guest appearances from Robert Pycior (O’Death), Tom Kovacevic (Cerberus Shoal), Josephine Foster, Elisabeth Fuchsia (Ryan Davis, Ned Collette, Pile), and Michael Cormier O’Leary (Friendship, Hour) among others, there’s a seasoned and tempered brilliance to it all, a cool breeze weaving between the tallest trees and open skies with infinite stars. Greg Jamie’s songs have a somber resolve, but never feel broken or defeated, instead they arrive like reflections and recollections on mortality and the turmoils of the heart. “Wanna Live” is the record’s disorienting centerpiece, a track that ripples with an anxious anxiety and a haunting beauty. With drums provided by Mark Fede (Fat History Month), there’s a steady pulse that allows everything else to swirl, the melodies moving in circular patterns as instruments pop and fade in relation to the rhythm. Greg Jamie’s vocals feel like a perfect fit and yet a contrast to it all as he laments the deterioration of a relationship with a shaky but assured, “I want my ego back. I want my baby back”. The video, directed by Ryan Marshall, brings Jamie’s lyrics from his lips to your ears, quite literally, up close and personal with both the artist and the gorgeous simplicity of the nature that seems to inform his sound.