I spoke out loud¹ upon removing Aubade from my car's cd player entering my apartment to write these very thoughts below. "What's not to love?", I said to myself. This had been my second week of allowing Pure Horsehair's latest release to consume my daily drive(s) and, quite honestly, the soundtrack to days. I had been singing & humming - sharing and waking to - "On Looseleaf With Sharpie" from the first time I heard the perfect composition. "I'd like to tumble, collapse inside your arms / for nuts and sugar, fruits of fancy" states Garrett Devoe on just one grand instance of the many Aubade's opening song reveals. Readers, lovers - all within earshot: please do yourself the mightiest of favors and hear "On Looseleaf With Sharpie". Fruitful gateway drugs in the form of pristine audio composition this "On Looseleaf" is, and the 10 tracks that follow will warm your frail stature. The slightest of percussion tumbling like 3-week young kittens with acoustic guitars, bass and accordions² on endless acres of uncharted - a hue of permanent green - spring grasses. Think the smell of Easter baskets & candies when you were five. If you led a sheltered youth, think of that which you wished you could have had. Think (know) "The Flowering of the Rod".

"No computers were used in the recording and mixing of this record" informs the notes accompanying Aubade - an album that finds foundation in, for the majority of the record, 2 men: Garrett Devoe and Shazad Ismaily. Where do those (here, Devoe and Ismaily) that carry such a gift and "knack" for creating structures of sound this wholesome find their inspiration? Aubade, with her passion and obvious care leave me asking so very many questions, when what I should truly be doing is allowing the magic held within to calm my hectic nerves.

Pure Horsehair. Aubade. "What's not to love?".

k :: ( today ) << info >> << home >>

°: au·bade n.
A song or instrumental composition concerning, accompanying, or evoking daybreak.
A poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn.
¹: common action.
²: instruments listed: crumar, glockenspiel, harmonium, melodica, electric guitar (see: "Mama Did That"), bendir, mini cojon.