034: Phosphorescent - Fences
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I took the chance today.
With the wide blue skies calling, and a few hours left of it, I climbed in the car and drove to the hills. The quiet roads of a Monday, the prickly magic of an afternoon stretched out ahead of you. I'm still relatively new to driving, so moments like this still often feel like a step out of time. It's enough to make you feel like you're alive.
Coming over through the mountain pass, down the long sweeping road that ends at the loch, 'Song For Zula' comes on, that storied, winding masterpiece that Matthew Houck released under his Phosphorescent guise all the way back in 2013, eleven years ago. "I know love as a fading thing. Just as fickle as a feather in a stream," Houck sang then, full of caged romantic fury.
A little earlier this year, Phosphorescent released Revelator, his eighth full-length studio album. I noticed the occasion but I hadn't got around to spending any time with it until recently, until I saw someone call it a masterpiece, a beleaguered but alluring collection that deserved not to be ignored.
And so it is. Houck's whiskey-scorched voice alone is enough to sustain intrigue for as long as he feels like singing, but there's an edge to this new record - both weary and wired - that really cuts through. Whether singing about faltering love or the faltering world, it feels vital in a way I'd forgotten he could be.
Far from the cinematic unravellings found on Zula, a song like 'Fences' feels pointedly more direct, though there's still a passionate poetry to it. "Our path beside the sea was firm at low tide, I wouldn’t have believed it could disappear, or that the gulf between us could get so wide. I can’t even recall how we got here."
The playing is beautifully balanced, and while there's plenty going on - strings, keys, guitar, drums, additional vocals - it only ever presents a ripple that lingers somewhere way off in the distance, like a mountain in a rear-view mirror, like a memory you're trying your best not to recall.
Reminiscent of S. Carey's wilting, wonderful solo pieces, 'Fences' kind of redefines what Houck is capable of doing with his work. You get the feeling he could churn out light country ballads for years to come - and revel in such shapes - but here he offers something powerfully meaningful, heavy-hearted but light of touch; a master at work.
And so I pass it on, and pay it forward: and say that you should spend some time with this record if you haven't yet got around to doing so.
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