Like an ambling automobile, Jesy Fortino rambles over simple roads and leaves notes on wood walls. She passes on her sanguine stories and genuinely interesting imagery. She reminds the listener that subtle differences make for better choruses, more full and dexterous fills to her folk handiwork. One can imagine the nights she wrote these songs, the rank-and-file world around her melting away as she strummed those nights to their ends.
To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what she means sometimes or what she is worried about or why I love this album so much. I just know that it doesn't matter. I feel like I am moving slower. I feel like running my hands over the bricks of the buildings I work in. I feel like lying down under school desks and resting during math problems I don't understand. I feel like leaving the party early when I decide I don't like anyone there.
Hands Across the Void is a particularly lonely record but not because she is playing solo. It's lonely because of the strokes of the guitar, the mood of the voice, the simplicity that sweeps over the entire set of songs. It is 40 minutes of blissful ignorance to the rest of the world's problems. Self exploration at its finest yet internal thought at its slowest. Pick any point in the album and it is a pointed note—one of significant placement and certain advancement. There are no steps backward. No note that regresses, no lyric that stops to focus. It is only reflection inward, which arrives at a lonely point not unlike when Will Oldham wants to fuck a mountain or John Darnielle hopes he and his wife both die. As the record advances, it continues to sell itself though cold and forlorn. It works. Hands Across the Void is realistic, though-provoking and worthwhile though impossible to listen to with companions.
Most inviting are Tiny Vipers' travels—back in time, forward in her mind and around her present standings. So goes the listener alongside her, whether they arrive at the same point as Ms. Fortino or not. Impressively, the listener barely notices that s/he has traveled at all. Seemingly, the story matters more to the listener than to her. Her lyrics reflect someone who understands her surroundings enough not to question them. Instead she reports; tells us the barest facts and fills in the requisite blanks. As a storyteller she is not perfect, but her presence resonates enough to keep interest. It is the listener's patience that is tested. In most cases, I think the result will be resoundingly positive. |