Impressive set of acoustic guitar and song craft by D.A. Meeks, sent here from Louisville Kentucky.
Meeks might be the same performer who goes by name of Holiday Rambler, who made an LP called There Is No End To The World, And Nothing Can Shatter The Earth and a cassette called It Lasted a Hundred Years, It Will Last a Hundred More; plus he makes films and he designs posters, the latter of which are equally well-crafted examples of hand-made art prints and seem, in their general demeanour and the way they present their messages, to hark back to a more innocent time in American history, perhaps a period just before the second world war and when Franklin Roosevelt was still in power, and the citizens of that vast country had a more optimistic sense of their own identity, and it still meant something to be living in the land of the free.
I might be inclined to say the same about I Am Here To Represent A Piece Of Wood (DECEITFUL EAR RECORDINGS DEAR003 / QUALITY CO. QTY21), 14 short songs whose hallmarks are a real sense of clarity and purpose. Simple one-chord melodies, simple ripple-picking, and in particular there’s the singing voice, which shines forth without a single fluffed note, every phrase stated quietly but firmly with a real sense of conviction. The lyrics, meanwhile, are shot through with signs and symbols which seem to have been drawn from the pages of the Bible, or at any rate informed by a sense of old-time religion, only occasionally referring to any specific faith or belief system. With its strong interest in nature and pastoral imagery, plus the sense of withdrawing from the modern world, I Am Here To Represent might be a modest attempt to rekindle the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, a naturalist and essayist who (for quite different reasons) also had a profound effect on the thinking of John Cage.
I like the honesty and directness of Meeks on this record, even if he also projects the impression of being almost hermetically remote; not exactly dwelling in an ivory tower, but his humble log cabin in the woods is hard to find, and, once found, the dweller therein seems to speak in endless riddles. However, Crow Hollister’s liner notes indicate that there’s one listener who has found a wealth of richness and resonance in this LP, veering in his observations from esoteric bibliophile references to the minutiae of natural history. If you want musical comparisons, you could try early Leonard Cohen, although the Canadian poet is ten times more cryptic with his symbols, and is one who has been genuinely touched and hurt by life, whereas Meeks seems to shy away from raw emotional truths in favour of his stoic hard-edged view of nature. There’s also Will Oldham, but he’s much darker, wilfully obscure, and ready to lapse into violence if the story demands it.
It remains to mention the presentation of the LP with its immaculate letterpress typography on the back cover, another near-obsolete craft which is evidently surviving as a cottage industry in certain pockets of the world; Meeks also uses letterpress on his posters (see above). I suppose it to be part of Meeks’ overall plan; not simply to evoke past history, but striving hard to revive elements from it, and make it a way of life. From 4th October 2023.