Iron & Wine - Woman King EP
Sam Beam, the Floridian singer-songwriter behind Iron & Wine, has shown a remarkable ability to scrape away the outer layers of other songwriters’ material to lay bare the roughness beneath. I first encountered Iron & Wine on a B-side reinvention of the title track of The Postal Service’s Such Great Heights EP. Beam took an airy, hushed approach that brought to the surface an ache and longing that the original had hidden under laptop clicks and indie-pop hooks. Last December, I finally got the chance to see Iron & Wine perform live, and Beam gave a similar treatment to New Order’s “Love Vigilantes.” He didn’t so much cover the song as interpret it, speaking the song in a tongue that opened my eyes to the heartbreaking story New Order had obscured behind a veil of jaunty synthpop.
Since Iron & Wine’s 2002 debut album, The Creek Drank the Cradle, Sam Beam has gradually reinvented his own sound, lovingly polishing each successive release a little bit more than the last. In contrast to the rustic bygone-era sound of his early work, Iron & Wine’s Woman King EP practically shimmers. Beam finds eager new partners for his usual acoustic guitar and breathy vocals — ringing dulcimer arpeggios, raucous piano punctuation, even driving percussion. The final track barrels on to climax amidst a battle of droning fiddles and crunching electric guitars. While I would happily consume a half-dozen more Creeks, I have absolutely fallen in love with the lushly developed sound of this disc.
As the title suggests, Iron & Wine gives us six songs that are inhabited — even possessed — by women. And what women! A righteous regal warrior. A lusty, treacherous queen facing an ominous fate. Mary. Jezebel. Lilith. This is epic, mythic, Biblical territory. And Beam attacks these songs with the vigor that his heroines demand. Only “Jezebel” and “In My Lady’s House” harken back to the gentleness of his previous work. Yet even in Jezebel, the dogs roam hungrily just outside the window.
Woman King EP was released today on Sub Pop Records. Sub Pop offers a free mp3 download of the title track.
7 Ripples from “Iron & Wine - Woman King EP”
Kristen says:
February 23, 2005 at 7:02 am
Thanks for reviewing this. I’m excited to hear it!
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zalm says:
February 23, 2005 at 12:02 pm
you’re welcome. when you do get a chance to pick it up (and by you, i might mean micah), let me know what you think.
i owe you a lot for gilead. consider this a first installment.
of course, if i end up liking that bright eyes disc, i’ll have even more catching up to do.
Kevin says:
February 24, 2005 at 7:02 am
I keep hearing so many good things about Iron & Wine. I don’t know why I haven’t checked ‘em out yet. Thanks for the mp3 link.
Brandon says:
February 24, 2005 at 11:03 am
So...what do they sound like? Can you describe their style?
zalm says:
February 24, 2005 at 1:02 pm
hmmm… i guess reviews should really answer that question, shouldn’t they?
the creek drank the cradle and the sea and the rhythm ep sound like they could have been recorded 70 years ago. both albums are just acoustic guitar and voice, with some background washes of a bluesy slide guitar. beam sings in a quiet, breathy voice, often with his sister or his own voice providing beautiful harmonies. and the recording leaves in all the hiss, snaps, crackles and pops that make the songs sound like they belong on vinyl.
if you’re looking for another artist to use as a comparison, i think nick drake is probably the closest you’ll get. think drake’s pink moon album, but maybe not quite as minor. it’s an imprecise comparison, to be sure, but i don’t think it’s that far off.
last year’s our endless numbered days sounds slightly more crisp, introduces a few more instruments to the mix, and begins to vary the tempo and energy of the songs.
i can imagine that some people may find iron & wine to be monotonous or slow, but i think it’s gorgeous, intimate, timeless music.
zalm says:
February 24, 2005 at 2:02 pm
even better than taking my word for it, the mp3 link in the post links to a page with five free tracks, one from each release.
and if you’re really into free, you can stream a few live performances here:
KEXP 2002
KEXP 2004
KCRW 2002 (streaming video, too!)
KCRW 2003 (you’ll have to advance a ways into the broadcast to get to the performance, but it’s worth it for a sublime reinvention of the flaming lips’ “waiting for superman")
zalm says:
February 25, 2005 at 2:02 am
i know that posting three comments in a row on my own site is probably tremendously bad form, but i just saw some new iron & wine tour dates.
so i thought i’d point out to brandon that iron & wine will be at calvin on april 18. for that matter, sam and friends will be at the house of blues april 20, kevin.