The timing couldn’t be worse for A Weather. Their brilliant
and gloomy debut album of slouched-shoulder, hushed folk is set to see
the light of day—during, well, the light of the day. The record,
Cove, is the sound of another monochromatic Portland winter of
rain-streaked windows and that permeating feeling that—no matter
what you do—you’ll never be warm or dry. But the music industry
calendar knows not of our gray winters, so Cove was in stores
last month, and its release is celebrated this week, just as the winter
burns off and summer waits on the horizon.
Granted, weather patterns and meteorologists should not be consulted
before an album’s release, but A Weather thrives in the gloomiest of
conditions. This is winter music, and to declare this blunt emotional
slab of quiet folk anything else is an act of immeasurable optimism.
The band—five of them in all—is primarily known for the
quaint story of how a pair of sad-sack, but utterly charming singers
(the soft-throated Aaron Gerber and the smoky-voiced Sarah Winchester)
came together with friends, made some demos, played some shows, and
suddenly caught the ear of one Conor Oberst, who inked the band to his
Team Love label. If the past has taught us anything, it’s that unknown
bands with zero connections who sing in soft voices that beg to be
cloaked in bar-side chatter at live performances aren’t likely to last
too long, and especially aren’t the type to woo a proven voice like
Oberst. But A Weather did, and the result of this tender courtship is
Cove.
It’s hard not to cling to every word that passes through the pursed
lips of Gerber and Winchester, their delicate delivery saddling each
passing lyric with a heightened sense of importance. No whisper is
wasted as the duo establishes a poetic balance between the bittersweet,
the sullen, and the introspective. But if the sheer level of personal
emotion and intimate bedroom murmurs are too much to bear, and you fear
your level of interest in the band leans toward voyeurism, Gerber
assures us that his words don’t travel straight from his diary to the
lyric book.
“Our style of singing creates an illusion of truth. In the lyrics
there are little jokey things that end up not sounding like jokes
because of our delivery.” Gerber concludes, “But I never feel like I
reveal too much.”
Winchester, on the other hand, handles her role as co-vocalist by
removing herself entirely from the process. “When I think about my
parts, I get really critical. So I imagine that it’s someone else
singing instead.” She explains, “I have this vision of Aaron walking
down the street singing and there’s this red-headed woman singing my
parts. And that helps me be more objective about it.”
“Hanging Towers of Baltimore” is a welcome expansion of the band’s
cozy sound, bouncing along at a pace similar to a rambling, pre-Islam
Cat Stevens, or Paul Simon in his There Goes Rhymin’ Simon days.
But Cove‘s mightiest moment is the shuffling ballad “Pinky Toe,”
which is rich with descriptive prose about getting “banged up like a
pinky toe,” and best accentuates the natural vocal interplay of
Winchester and Gerber, as they echo, in one grand final refrain, that
“no one should be alone/no one, no one…” before fading out
entirely.