House by the Sea (acoustic Iron & Wine cover)

[@isaiahsays]

I’m so interested in the flow of songs in your musical diary. This is such a mysterious, disquieting piece… led here by the fragility in your voice, and the clarity in the guitar. One disquieting element is the extreme dryness you bring to the recit sections (in opera you’d say ‘secco’, which literally means ‘dry’ and which refers to recits that aren’t underscored by strings, but just the harpsichord which doesn’t have any sustain). Your choice to do those sections super-dry, to let the voice die off early as well, is a real zoom-in for the ear. You hear something unprocessed, unreleased, almost subconscious, holding the voice back. The delay of kicking in the full strum until nearly two-thirds of the way through the song is strong too. It feels like a foreground colour choice that way, not just a backdrop pattern. Iron & Wine has been a real revelation in your various covers of his stuff… And I’m grateful that your versions highlight the lyrics, which sometimes get lost in the (very cool) production he does. There’s something strangely resonant about this song today. What does it mean to you? I sense something deep and turbid… dreamlike… Very eloquently expressed, powerful because it seems to spring out of deep connections. 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤