Solvents are Port Townsend, Washington's husband and wife duo Jarrod Bramson on guitar and violinist Emily Madden who debut their self made video for "Careless Step" from their forthcoming album, Ghetto Moon. Following up 2011's forgive yr. blood, Jarrod and Emily built Moon from a one day session at Karl Blau's Anacortes studio of Earth, Laura Veirs and Mount Eerie recording fame.
The Washington couple takes you beyond the late night patrol car sirens, freight train crossings, wads of analog tape in the hay, ballet recitals, folk festival performances, walks past the douglas firs, gazebo performances, beyond the piers and into the Pacific's Northwest far reaching waters. Giving a soft song of warning against the heartache and heartbreak of the world, Bramson and Madden sing out timeless wisdom against the nefarious intentions and lies of the material world. "Don't let them fill your head with promises, they'll watch you tumble down through emptiness, yes there's a place for those who can't connect…" Through the drudgery, the two hint at another utopian world, free of the ties from the aforestated dreariness.
The gorgeous musical dialogue between Jarrod's acoustic guitar strums and Emily's sad and serene violin sways presents the evocative joy of stringed instruments, as the two give cryptic and mythic winks and allusions to escapist possibilities with the video's survey of outbound ships in the harbor. "Yes, there's a place that's not discovered yet." Somewhere between the roads, waters, and touring circuits awaits the discovery of new ground, new lands and uncharted waters where new, spirit affirming and awakening hopes abound.
"I want to turn you away, from the hopeless, horrid things they'll say, better learn from your life and take a careless step into the night…" Taking life lessons or taught lies, the world they present unveils it's learnings in the night's darkness. For those undiscovered places, the two play around with images running in reverse as if to present a new, backwards world that moves in opposite motions away from their statements of unrewarding emptiness. Here Jarrod and Emily are seen pacing in rewind, ballerinas reversing their choreographed orders, backwards jumps, and the tropical fish that swim in opposing directions within their tank. The world for the two of them revolves like Teac reel to reel spools where the tape captures their holistic world that runs forward with the crowd or in a rewound reversion away from life's status quo of fiduciary, yet fruitless demands.
Solvents' forthcoming album Ghetto Moon will be available March 19 from Bee Resin Records.
