I first came across Hush Arbors around a year ago when Uncut magazine put one of their tracks on a compilation cd they give away each month. Signed to the brilliant ecstatic peace label I was immediately struck by the sadness in Keith Woods voice, it reminded me a lot of the late Saint Thomas who I am a massive fan of and the second track (Lisbon) on the new album which just came out this week in the U.K yankee reality is uncannily similar. This is completely accidental as when I saw Keith play a solo set recently in London he said he’d never heard if him when I asked him.
Hush arbors earlier albums blends fuzzy lo-fi psych-folk with country but on the new one, which is produced by Dinosaur jr’s J Mascis there’s an added rockier edge to it, namely on fast asleep and the blistering final track Devil made you high but it still manages to maintain the default sound on so they say and one way ticket. If I had to pick out my favourite track from this album which quite frankly doesn’t have a bad one on it, i’d probably go for take it easy only because it’s completely different to any other they’ve done, more country sounding in the style of say The Byrds but you could ask me again tomorrow and I could plump for coming home with it’s chugging along riff and mellotron (played by J Mascis) with the first line ” I was thinking about the country, walking down these city roads, thinking about the space between, the silent and my soul” I love shit like this, it resonates with me.
When I was in London and I saw Keith play rue hollow I remember sitting completely transfixed by him and coming to the realisation that I was in the presence of a genius. He’s got that certain thing no one can name or put a finger on, the same as Elliott Smith had or Nick Drake, just that something. His songs seem to come from somewhere deep within him very few of us ever reach, the bit where the real honesty lays and he’s bearing his very soul. Very few songwriters do this in my opinion, it takes guts to lay it all out on the line for everyone to hear and that leaves a certain vulnerability, it’s risky because it seems so fragile and any criticism could easily break it, or at least try to. Criticism must be hard to take when you’ve just bared your soul.
Now based in London there’s a couple of dates in Italy and then London at the end of October. Info here
Kindly I have been allowed to put up a couple of mp3’s for you to download but please please please, if you like it go and buy it here, you will not be disappointed I promise you. Enjoy.
For your attention Keith is also part of Six organs of admittance and Current 93 and has just supported Sonic Youth on a London date.
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