August by Shannon Lay | Album Review
Shannon’s third album is mixes the soft stylings of folk music with the through an indie music lens.
I have to say I had no clue of Shannon’s sound when diving into the project. I thumbed through various lists of suggested artists and her just happened to catch my eye. I am quite happy that I did as this third outing by the California native is a crispy breeze of more alt-folk oriented tracks. Lay ebbs between mostly solo tracks of just her and guitar with others that touches of instrumentation that bring watercolor painting to mind. It’s just enough to add color without taking you away from the main form of the peice. The catalyst for the record came from Lay quitting her day job and going on tour with Kevin Morby:
“Yeah I wrote a lot of it on that tour and a lot of it on the months afterwards, reflecting on the times and having the time to spend at home and be free to write whenever I wanted. It was a really reflective period, and thinking about other people and what they do with their time, what we’re capable of… I love the urban dictionary word “to sonder,” which is to consider the fact that everybody has their own stuff going on, and people that they love and people that love them. it’s kind of looking at the bigger picture of everything, I was doing a lot of that, so a lot of the material came from this huge zoom out.”
What came out of it is an album perfect for the more relaxed moments.
The song that really captured me from this album is the opening track “Death Up Close”. Shannon told Saved By Old Times the following on the meaning of the track:
“More than actual death, I was thinking of the death of old habits and these behaviours that didn’t necessarily benefit me anymore. Again, it was about the idea that everybody is going through that thing. It goes from “I” to “you” to “we”, so it’s kind of this collective experience of growing up, and finding new behaviours that can make life a lot easier, and hopefully learning things about yourself that can help you.”
The song reminds me a lot of an early Joni Mitchell song through its simple plucked acoustic accompaniment. I really like the addition of the saxophone. It gives the song a rich autumnal sound. With blend of strings and the ever so subtle delay on guitar on doubled vocals, the song drifts like a falling leaf in the breeze. You can hear her ode to the death of habits, relationship, and life through the lines, “Come again, don’t mind the gap
No sense to recognize/ Come back/ Have you seen death up close now?” While the song doesn’t have the traditional verse/chorus structure, I really like how Lay organized it.
“Nowhere” fades in ever so slowly into a rich creamy blend of indie-folk tones . Shannon adds in a Rhodes, bass, and drum to give the song a more rigid body. This one is more reminiscent of say Laura Veirs work. Lays told Saved by The Old Times the following around the meaning of the track.
“The short answer is “enjoy the journey.” Don’t think so much about where you’re going, it’s about enjoying the ride along the way, and considering the fact that you don’t have to have these expectations and ideas about what’s going to happen, it’s all happening in that moment, even the 8-hour car ride — so much can happen if you allow yourself to be present in that moment. You might discover a song or watch a movie that changes your life. There’s so much that can happen in the in between, and it’s about that.”
Lay speaks on the journey to escaping the trappings of the world to get back to herself. Her words in the opening verse, “No thought no concern here/ Separate dimensions/ No sound, sound, sound,” bring to mind losing yourself in the moment and being present for it.
“November” continues the gentle coo of her folk stylings. It’s a very simple plucked acoustic track with a lovely flowing violin melody that provides a peaceful current. I can feel sense of pain and reverence for a life lost in Shannon’s words. She told Saved by The Old Time that the song is for Nick Drake who passed away in November of 2018. Her words, “I think of him often/ Wonder if he’s listening/ I wonder if a voice so quiet/ Could ever really die/ That’s when I realize/ That it cannot,” give the listener hope that a person’s essence lives on both in the ether and with them after their passing.
“Shuffling Stoned” begins the more simplistic section of the album. Lays takes a very mellow, almost whispered tone with her vocals. You almost have to lean it to hear the track. While I understand this hushed feeling is supposed to echo to wash off calm that comes over you under the influence, I wish it had a little more complexity sonically. Her lines, “What is your name, does it matter?/ I’ll just enjoy your sweet, sweet silver tones/ And the sound and the smell and a tiny spider in the mix/ Shuffling stoned,” conjure up the imagery of losing yourself in the sound of music while under the influence. While I do love this nearly whispered sound, something about the structure of this song just doesn’t quite work for me.
The shortest track, coming in at just over a minute and a half, is “Past Time”. It takes a more jaunty melody. Again, I get a very folksy Joni-like sound from Shannon’s simplistic arrangement. The dangerous place that Shannon is singing about is revisiting the past. She discussed with Saved by The Old Times that the song is about her grandmother:
“I wanted to pay tribute to her because her life has been incredible, and I think it’s wild that people from that time are nearing the end; people that experienced that way of living are soon not gonna be here anymore. So hanging out with her and hearing about how she grew up and what she went through is fascinating to me. I wish that I had some of her tenacity in me. I feel it can only be acquired by living in that era when life was simpler but more complicated, and you had to be tough because if you weren’t you wouldn’t survive… I got to play her the song for the first time when she came to one of my shows a while ago. It’s hard for to get out of the house, she’s 87, and she came to the show and she had a great time. It was very cool to get to play that song for her.”
You can hear how she’s trying to gleam some wisdom from her grandmother’s life through the lines of the song, “His affair was scandalous/ The drifters rubbed her behind/ Her sickness left her stronger/ The dog bit Buck and then he went crazy.”
Lay brings in an electric guitar on “Wild”. This track has such a languorous pull from the descending melody plucked out on the guitar. Because of this and the added drama from Shannon’s vocals, it makes me think of some of the moody sounds off of Cat Power’s Moon Pix. I’m happy to hear the little bit of percussion in the mix. I think without it the song would fall quite flat. She calls on the primitive yet civilized nature of people in the song’s chorus, “We are wild things/ Free to use our hands/ We are kind things/ Capable of the most evil.” I like this duality she plays with on the complexities of people’s how they choose to create and live.
We continue with the use of the electric guitar on “August”. This has a bit more momentum to it. Lay plucked bright melody against the hum of strings brings to mind the rush of the open road outside a moving car windshield. It takes a more Americana based sound that’s a welcomed change in pace. She discussed that August was when she decided to quit her day job and pursue music full time. You can hear her epiphany around this choice in the lines, “I’ve got the last piece of the puzzle we left to me/ And the only one gone is you/ And the only one left is me/ That was me in August.” With the motion of the melody and Shannon’s words to guide you, it feels like the gentle push you need to tackle your dreams in spite of your fears.
“Sea Came to Shore” takes us back to the gentle rustle of the more folksy tracks from earlier on the album. In addition to Lay’s finger style acoustic guitar comes the swirl of a few strings to add a pastel rush of color to the sepia tones of Shannon’s melody. Lay appears to be searching for clarity on the choices she must make in her life. This landscape acts our backdrop to putting our feet on the ground and moving forward, “And the signs were there to show the way/ But not for you/ You must find your own way/ Outside of time.”
We come back to an almost chilly autumnal sound of “Sunday Sundown”. While the song is simply acoustic guitar and vocal, Lay brings to mind sinking crisp air of dark blue cast late November evening through her melody. The song seems to tackle the emotions about a coming week as the weekend ends and you wax on what’s to come. Lay explains this further in her interview with Saved by The Old Times:
“I think it’s very much that, yeah. I wrote it at my old house where there was this gorgeous view of the sunset, and any day I was home I would sit out there and I would watch it. This particular day I had my guitar and it just came out. I was just thinking a lot about the end of the day, the end of your wits, these moments that we have, the sundowns of our lives, and the vibe of a Sunday in general; end of the week, you’ve been through a lot, take a minute.”
I appreciate that it takes a bit of a calming tone. She seems to want to lull you into the next week with a level head and lucid mind. It gives you the space to process what has happened and how you will move forward in the coming week.
Shannon brings back in the band with “Something On Your Mind”. Similar to the sound of “Nowhere”, Lay adds in soft percussion and Rhodes piano. This one doesn’t really capture me as much as the second track did. The band comes in small bursts throughout the track. I just wish the melody was a bit more developed. As it stands, it feels a bit too repetitive and stuck which feels a bit too monotonous after while. Shannon uses this moments to focus on the emotions and thoughts she’s been burying. Again, I feel the repetitive more jaunty tone just doesn’t quite convey the themes of the song as well as I would like.
“Unconditional” is a bit more of a moody solo acoustic track. The acoustic melody has little bit of momentum to it, though it picks up and slows like a rolling ball traveling up and down the topography of a hillside. Her ebbing and flowing melody matches the highs and lows she sings on in life. Overall, Shannon is calling unconditional love through all these moments in life, “Call it what you will/ Don’t say no/ Just say you do/ Unconditional.” She highlights this aspect of love in a world that seems to putting more and more conditions on how they care for others.
Shannon ends out the album on fairly dreamy not with the apty titled “The Dream”. The little bit of reverb on her electric guitar gives a bright fuzzy feeling to the melody. I appreciate this change in sound after several fairly slow acoustic songs. My one hang up is one sour note that comes in one of the deliveries of “It seems to me all a dream”. This sharp backing vocal breaks this calm floaty atmosphere that should have been omitted from the final cut. I also find the continuous repeating of the lines, “Well it seems to me all a dream/ Though it seems to me all a dream,” to be quite a bit stale. There doesn’t seem to be much meaning to it. This feels more like a demo that has yet to be completed than a finalized track.
I enjoyed the sweet folk sound that Shannon brought on with this project. Having no prior knowledge of her sound or background, I am interested to explore both her back catalog and more recent releases. My hang ups come in some of the structures of a few tracks and the album’s overall length. August is very short clocking in a just 30 minutes for its 12 tracks. I feel like you blink and a few of the tracks, “Past Time”, “November”, “Sea Came to Shore” and “Shuffling Stoned”, are over. I also think a few sonic and lyric changes would help some of the songs, especially the final track “The Dream”. That said, I found myself being lulled into a sense of calm and joy through a great portion of the album. It is worth a listen. If you enjoy folk music, especially more modern indie sounding folk music, I think you’ll enjoy this album. My album breakdown:
Loved it: “Death Up Close”, “Nowhere”, “Wild”, “August” & “Sunday Sundown”
Liked it: “November”, “Past Time”, “Sea Come to Shore”, “Something On Your Mind” & “Unconditional”
Disliked it: “Shuffling Stoned” &“The Dream”
My overall rating: 6.0 out of 10.
