The music of Cotton Jones speaks of
transition: the passage from one form, state of mind,
style or place to another. Songs become doorways to
the past, or windows that open on some unnamed future,
where innocence can still exist and perfection is thrown
to the wind.
The Glowstream is a place centered between North
and South Cumberland. It's not really called the Glowstream
– just a stream that rolls to a dead end by the
train tracks downtown. A place to sit, undisturbed in
the cool shade, and see the interstate bend around glowing
steeples, as cars and trucks break their speed –
it's beautiful – how the city materializes, an
oasis, after driving many miles through the mountains
along I-68 – to this private spot, where it’s
possible to witness all the paces change.
Michael Nau & Whitney McGraw skipped town months
ago, leaving the old haunts in Cumberland behind...
To sift through the old noise, they walked off the edge
of their world... To sound the depths, the songwriters
relocated, to Georgia, far south of the Glowstream.
“We spent a lot of time on the bank of that stream
– alone, together, gathered like a flock of birds,
examining the next move,” said Nau. “Many
of the tunes on this record feel like Cumberland to
me. When I'm there, it’s like a dream –
all familiar sound and light, where the factories and
birds sing the same song.”
The duo settled fast after the move, halted their incessant
touring and festival appearances, and began the process
of selecting a new cycle of songs to follow their acclaimed
Suicide Squeeze debut, Paranoid Cocoon.
Cotton Jones, as always, rests in arms of Nau and McGraw.
Tall Hours in the Glowstream, is the title
of their new album. Some of the songs that made the
final cut were tracked in northern States, while the
majority were recorded and mixed in Winterville, Georgia,
as a revolving cast of players, thinkers, and singers
were invited to hang in the band’s living-room
studio.
The resulting sounds are both rich and charmingly lo-fi,
full of vivid imagery and more gorgeous vocal harmony.
Hard-asking tracks like “Somehow To Keep It Going”
and “More Songs For Margaret” prove the
promise in this music, the feeling of something better
to come if only you can hold tight a little longer...
"Always the mornings keep coming..." And what
a beautiful thing that is...
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