Iron And Wine: Around The Well

Jim Beam, who is the songwriter at the heart of Iron and Wine, has a fine voice, however one dimensional it may be. However, the attribute which I consider to be his strongest, above his songwriting which can be very samey and above his guitar playing which can be very repetitive (particularly the slide playing), is his storytelling and his eye for a turn of phrase. If I look at his benevolent, observational lyrics from one angle they look like a painfully earnest posture. A candidate for the Soft Sincerity Party, with a very consistent message that you can grasp from the tone of the music before you’ve even heard one syllable fall from his mouth: A well oiled machine.

That kind of cynicism finds a lot of footholds in my mind, but before I let it race to the top of the mountain I think that it’s worthwhile walking around the base and taking a look at the other side. How easy it is for a music writer to use reviews to build up a file which justifies their taste to their readers. It’s partly necessary, music being an extra limb which we all use to feel the world somehow and it’s partly not; particularly when we attempt to bludgeon enjoyment out of others just because we need to validate ourselves, a reaction that stems from an inability to distinguish a musical crime from a symbol of a musical culture we don’t understand.

I used to listen to Iron and Wine’s ‘The Creek Drank the Cradle’ a lot not so many years ago and it meant something to me at the time. I feel certain that what rubbed off on me back then had a positive effect. On the other side of the mountain I hear a songwriter whose approach to his world is nuanced, well considered and just plain likeable. He is accompanied on the second disc by a band which is in touch with his approach, bolstering the songs in a subtle way. Not that it’s likely that I will listen to this record once this review is done, besides a couple of tracks like the rich and airborne melodies of ‘Belated Promise Ring’ and the feverish swoon of ‘Carried Home’. Both of these are arranged and produced very well and either exemplify Beams style, or as with ‘Carried Home’ represent a considerable experiment in Iron and Wine territory.

In my opinion Beam is not posturing; he affords the subjects of his tales, and himself, a certain privacy and respect. He places emphasis on the strong emotions experienced by his characters, but doesn’t emphasise them to the point where the song leans too heavily on those moments. There are other things going on, the light in the trees, where the girls shoes came from, how an uninvolved onlookers face appeared to the soldier as he returned home. These are all creations of mine, but they are rooted in Beam’s perspective.

It’s also true that music writers often avoid the “I don’t like it, but you might” approach, one which I am tempted to try my hand at here. It can come across as patronising, evasive and is perhaps a double edged sword. Reeling the reader at length into agreement, then saying “but who am I to judge”. But I don’t know what else to say. I honestly feel that if I wrote a review which highlighted the reasons why I won’t listen to this again I may well accidentally turn someone off Iron and Wine, when they might be just what the reader is looking for. As an out-takes collection this two disc/three vinyl set is of exceptional quality.

Disc one comes from the early years, recalling the more lo-fi ambience of The Creek Drank The Cradle, just guitar or banjo, Beams voice and some slide laid over which I imagine were recorded at home much like most of his output at the time. Love-songs like ‘Sacred Vision’, and paeans to companionship like ‘Friends They Are Jewels’ are moist-eyed and dewy, but are undeniably representative of emotions that I feel regularly and cherish. Lines like “dreamless sleep will fall like a de-poisoned well” are interesting alone, but I am still unsure if he sings “de-poisoned” or “deep poisoned”. He allows possibilities to breathe, he leaves room in his songs for listeners to find their own meaning, as well as room for him to state a few things clearly.

Disc two comes from recent ‘studio’ cuts that didn’t make it to albums. The increase in quality doesn’t much change the way Beam plays or sings, but it does bring out all sorts of other elements. His soft sung words are more audible, which removes some of the old world mystique from the sound but not from the lyrics. Beam is a man inspired, and perhaps devoted to antiquated ways of living, thinking and loving, not just a dealer in caricatured images plucked from a museum of poetry and song. The clarity never becomes sterile, nor does the additional instrumentation become overbearing.

I have already mentioned ‘Carried Home’ and ‘Belated Promise Ring’, there are other songs on this disc which make it the better half in my opinion: the lush, Van Morrison tinged blues of ‘Kingdom of the Animals’, the disjointed, mechanized gospel folk of ‘Arms of a Thief’ and the fan favourite ‘The Trapeze Swinger’, which could be considered as nine minutes of the very essence of the music and words that are Iron and Wine. It bodes well for Iron and Wine fans that Beam and the band seem to be honing their style while also branching out. This is more than an album stop-gap; it could easily be a best of compilation so I would strongly recommend Iron and Wine fans to pick up a copy if they haven’t already.