Record Review: Iron and Wine - "Kiss Each Other Clean"

In 2002, when Iron and Wine released The Creek Drank the Cradle, we had no idea what Sam Beam's band-in-name-alone would become.

The hobby recordings of a college film professor, released on Sub Pop - a label better known for grungy North Westerners than lo-fi singer-songwriters, was an entirely unknown commodity.

Cradle was a soft whisper; emotionally devastating parables textured only with fingerpicked rhythms and the occasional mournful slide or banjo.  The songs had a impact larger than their minimalist arrangements, but they seemed just as likely to drift back to their source like some forgotten field recording as played in public again.

Two years later, the songs of Sam Beam did surface again, this time becoming Our Endless Numbered Days.  The new group of songs continued Cradle's story with similarly sparse instrumentation and tone, but better fidelity and production - adding some backing vocals and minimal spare percussion.  The aural Windex allowed for deceptively simple sentiments expressed in "Naked As We Came", "Sunset Soon Forgotten" and "Each Coming Night"' to become internalized, blessing a way of experiencing life that is simultaneously appreciative and hopeful, but achingly fleeting.  

Another three years passed before The Shepard's Dog was released in 2007, and Iron and Wine's sound was again being born anew.  A thick, ripe sound had been fleshed out into full band arrangements, interweaving strings, organs, electric guitar, and pedal steel into the trademark stream of consciousness lyrics and chorus-less phrasing.  Shepard's Dog was a masterpiece of an album; gripping in content, thought provoking, musically challenging, and constantly evolving and revealing with each listen.  Sam Beam successfully captured the essential aspects of his solo acoustic work and augmented it in a way that remained touching and fulfilling.  

And so with some hesitancy, many fans have awaited the first studio release from Sam Beam in four years. Would this gradual progression in sound continue to grow away from its acoustic roots or return to its origins?

When "Walking Far From Home", the first track on Kiss Each Other Clean opens, it is instantly realized that the sound is again evolving.  Beam's voice is alone against a vacant, looming drone until a stark piano chord and ringing vocal meet the songs wanderer with the first bits of gradually unfolding layers.  The songs juxtaposed images eventually culminate with Beam's falsetto reaching towards his own vocal responses, singing "saw a wet road form a circle / and it came like a call from the Lord".

"Me and Lazarus" follows with a swinging motion almost tidal in origin, imagining what the beneficiary of Jesus's resurrection might do with his second chance and establishing the one of many hints towards Beam as a Jesus figure.  "Monkey's Uptown" gets down right funky thanks to the efforts of the members of Chicago-based band Califone, who contribute throughout, and follows one of Sam's simpler and more overt love songs, "Tree by the River".  "Half Moon" gently bounces along with an electrified take on sounds familiar to Cradle and Numbered Days, again using the falsetto to carry the song to greater heights.

"Rabbit Will Run" is the lyrical tour de force for me among several solid choices; every verse is as good as :

      "Last I saw mother she acted surprised / when they caught me the captain he cried like a child
       Cause a rabbit will run / and good dogs together go wild
       We all live in grace at the end of the day / and we've armed all the children we thought we betrayed
       And I still have a prayer, but too few occasions to pray".

It feels like there's a bit of a missed opportunity here with this as the the album's centerpiece; the use of the slide whistle and flute really divert from darkness of the energy that impends and builds on the songs character, and is the only glaring misstep instrumentation wise, but the song still stands out as one of the albums best. Beam ends stating "...I still have a prayer, and I've furthered the world in my way".

"Big Burned Hand" makes the most successful use of Stuart Bogie's saxophone, who is featured on several tracks, with an allegorical take on war and those caught in its wake.  The hopeful collectiveness  of "Glad Man Singing" works to re-center the album before the crass, jazz clatter of "Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me" tugs it back with determined force towards a noisy philosophical whirlwind.

Overall, what is striking is that the cadence and timing of Beam's delivery and the lyrical melody initially draws you into the song more than the lyrics themselves.  The lyrics are distinctive as ever, with a film like quality more like a flip book of images in motion than static words, relying as much on the listeners persistence of vision as the writers.  But the lyrics come second for me here behind the warmth of the harmonies and the complement of the supporting vocal lines, many of them overdubs of Beam's own voice. The subtle melisma adds a gorgeous touch to many lines and the conviction in Beam's voice is indicative of his confidence in purpose.

What was righteous about Jesus for me is that he presented a path that subverted the structure of worship - godliness exists not in gospel or scripture, but in humanity.  Jesus, as the son of God, physically manifested himself as a human and came to walk among the people.  Jesus, and the people he preached to, were one of the same flesh - a panoply of thoughts and actions, wants and desires, moral judgements and arguments, being pulled in opposite directions by a multitude of competing forces.  The multitude of voices that enrich the world tear it down at the same time.  To close Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam sings versions of the same refrain - "We will...become, become / Become, the bruise and the blow".

Sam Beam sings the multiplicity of mankind.  A congregation of life in a constant state of becoming, audience and creator, making new ways of expressing the story.  And wherever the songs go musically, like any good film maker, Sam Beam knows that the original is always better than the sequel.

Glad Man Singing

Yonder come a glad man singing a song
but a soldier want a boot and a fallen angel
Naked as a fish at night

But a sad man climbed up a willow bough

And the cops are on the fence round the dog in the manger

And the mouth of the river is wide

Wide . . .

Yonder come a glad man singing a song

'bout the bushes by the gas pump gone to flower

and a constant star collides

'bout a sad man saying they forgotten how

And the baby quit sucking when the milk went sour

And the mouth of the river is wide

Wide . . .

'Bout a sad man lost in the hammock sway

When the bridal gown came Mama spit out the window

And the cops said the dog won't bite

And the sad man's saying they've forgotten how

And the blood running black in the valley shadows

And the river running all the while

Yonder come a glad man singing a song

'bout a lover rolled over, said you must be tired

And the truth coming towards the light

'bout a sad man knocking on a chapel door

And a burned out boat called "Tried by Fire"

The mouth of the river is wide

Wide . . . 


                                              - Sam Beam, Iron and Wine