<--
-->
The Handsome Family
In the Air (Loose)
On their last album, Through the Trees, The Handsome Family, husband and wife duo Brett and Rennie Sparks, went deep into the awful vengeful and destructive power of nature. It was an epic journey – the suicidal visions of “Weightless Again”, the urban tragedy of “The Woman Downstairs”, the macabre mythic fairytale of “My Sister’s Tiny Hands” – that ended in the bipolar ward with Brett raging on “My Ghost”, his spirit banging on the roof, looking for a way out.
The lyrics still show Rennie’s taste for dark folklore, bizarre enchantment and the twisted comedy of everyday tragedies more finely honed than ever. But, as the title suggests, on In the Air her sights are fixed on the supernal realm. Her husbands musical designs have moved on accordingly. Though recorded in the family living room, there’s a lushness and delicacy to the musical backdrop (guitars, autoharp, trash-can percussion, melodica, mandolin and “whatever else was lying around”, all recorded on a G3 Macintosh computer), which makes this an honourable counterpart to the modern Nashville sound of Lambchop’s resplendent Nixon. Indeed the area longing and bottomless well of sadness of the album’s two most heart rendering songs – “A Beautiful Thing” and “So much wine” – recall the plush, string laden finery once contrived for George Jones. And both songs – dreams of romance dissolving in a fug of blood and alcohol, the starbright sky overhead providing a sense of wonder and release – would do the mastero proud.
The Handsome Family may start from an unapologetically intellectual standpoint – Rennie’s words have a direct connection to the steely prose of Ambrose Bierce, Edgar Allen Poe and the nature poetry of Robert Frost – but the emotional directness of “Lie Down” (awash with fearful tremors, the sea’s swell cajoling and enticing a clam digger to his doom) or the comic longing of “The Sad Milkman” (an accordion-caressed lullaby, said milkman falling in love with the moon which he perceives as a milky goddess) have as much in common with the primitive, timeless geniuses gathered on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American folk music.
A resolutely small-scale operation, The Handsome Family’s vision is all-encompassing, including the Baptist bacchanal of “When that Helicopter Comes”, the rockabilly neurosis of the titles track and the soul-shivering murder ballad “My Beautiful Bride”. An album of vaulting desire, wistful imaginings and supernatural transformation, In the Air is haven bound.
Gavin martin
***** (5/5)