Central Valley raised and now California residing Levi Minson, has crafted a work of quiet beauty here. The first single from the debut album Violet Speedway, The Shadow is a stripped-back, direct thing – but one that calmly and quietly draws you in.
It begins with Needle in the Hay evoking acoustic intensity, guitars shaping simple but evocative shapes until a blast of percussive white noise momentarily kicks in and the depth of sound intensifies. Even so, this remains throughout gentle, lulling, hypnotic stuff – vocally reminiscent of Seven Swans era Sufjan – yearning, open, brimming with whispered but clear emotion.
The album was recorded over a couple weeks in Minson’s bedroom in Sacramento, using a Tascam four-track tape recorder- and you can hear the tape whirring gently in the background throughout. I love the resurgence of the Tascam (though it never really went away) and the intimacy such recording methods allow- where sounds become memory-cloaked ciphers. That is certainly the case here.
The Shadow is a beautiful song from a debut album that I am most certainly looking forward to hearing in full. You should be too.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
Music | Misophone (bandcamp.com)
