Abe Smith, poet, artist and songwriter from the salted mountains of Utah shares his musings on Jason Dea West's upcoming album Louella. Art about art, for art's sake.
If you find yourself wanting to read along, here is the transcript of his playful and illustrative spoken word poem review inspired by Louella, the 6th album from Jason Dea West, coming out April 21st right here on Honey Baby Records
BOON AND BLOOM
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for a young enough songster jason dea west has already been there, done that - from zona to oregon to wisco to taos by antique inkpot mercedes by train.
so it’s a fool’s cap full of snoring snakes to get into the business of comparison, but check it out:
i have listened thru his condition and conditionals for years - i know west’s range and i have tasted of the heavenly marmalade horizon he’s plying - and this new record - his first on Honey Baby -is his finest, hands down.
i’ll go ahead and stand on my wobbly octopus of a coffeetable alongside loretta my rascal terrier named after a tvz song and say that. hearts up like jackrabbit ears. his finest.
most folks sorta sound like most folks but west brings pliers and ploughshares to a windmill dizzy by great divide wind - ol squeak teeth that’s a good name for a windmill moonlightin as sunflower sculpture drawin up ghost horse teeth and dust.
that is, west’s is a signature sound. like dylan or parr or cohen or li po or prine or thalia zedek, you know him when you hear him. there is no other quite like.
slaps and mashes the vowels and consonants like sparrows thru chainlink. school trays in a bored line transfigured as sleddin boats when the blizzard ghosts the skyway with turkey gizzard mother rain.
flings the lyrics and snaps at the rhymes and just when you are sure you’ve got the horse by the tail, fuse pulled from ticking nest, he’ll catch you with a line so splendidly unexpected that you know where you are at - yield sign twistin like a tonsil in an opera: eternal realms, spare change pocket bardic.
too often for my blood which is the flambeau river throwback in wild asparagus and poison ivy fringes. too often art is apart. people sit to it to connive a craft designed to cow the cashes.
with west tho, we jaunty, we hopscotch and butter to the other side across a more perfect and ancient unifying pasture: see, his art is spun from the art of living how he does. see, each note travels. him and his band do too.
traded in the tvz skin-like-iron for something gentler: traded in the brash and brass punk knuckles for oriole rest depth. yes this welcome mat will work to patch that tire. lift yr shawl, honey, like heron wings. feathery pollen plume. dusty cry wise. turquoise tuff turned cerulean. and free for all.
boon and bloom: when we listen to the fine metal and supple leather of these ingenious and genial tunes we ramble too. lightnin bug exposin dust to be this truth: a world about to star the scar beside your sun freckle. be still in gone. and going catch at the next song - effortless raucous
jubilant.
finally, all these on Louella are love songs - and lucky are we to follow their rattlin shine thru dark ways to dawn.
1 comment
Yup