CMJ New Music Report - March 2012 - Tasting Grace

Photo by d.L. Anderson
This makes The Clearing, the third LP from the Bowerbirds, a thematic
rarity, a truly odd bird.
Moore and Beth Tacular began the Bowerbirds together, and their
relationship has always been central to the band’s music and
public identity: two young people in love, singing beautiful pastoral
folk songs, living off the land in a cabin, serving as a gentle sonic
reminder that occasionally we should stop and smell the bark. “We
do get pigeonholed as this folk activist band,” says Moore from his
home in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Not activist even, but like folk,
green, hippy band or whatever. And I feel, personally, it’s not as if
I don’t believe in all those causes, I just think it’s hard to relate to
being called a folk musician now.”
The group released its debut, Hymns For A Dark Horse, in 2007 and
soon began work on the follow-up album, Upper Air, writing half
of the songs in one session and then going on a three-month tour.
Moore and Tacular drifted apart during this time, eventually ending
their relationship. “That was really difficult,” says Moore. “To be
on the road together and constantly having to make decisions and
having to play shows and putting yourself out there. It really took its
toll on the relationship.”
The pair wrote the second half of Upper Air upon returning from
the tour, which makes Upper Air at least half of a breakup record
or, perhaps, a record of broken people. “We didn’t really make a big
deal of it on [Upper Air] because we were still in that really vulnerable
spot where we didn’t want to share that kind of information,” explains
Moore. “We actually had to release the album and play that whole
album while being broken up for a year, and we didn’t really want
to answer questions like that at the time. We were on stage singing
breakup songs about our breakup.”
At the midpoint of the song “This Year,” one of the standout tracks
off of the new album, Moore sings, “On and on goes the long winter/
My eyes now fixed to the stars/We’ve been there before and I’m fairly
sure we’ll find a clearing/In the forest of our hearts.” It’s a stirring
moment. Moore’s dewey, Terrence Malick-like transcendentalism
colliding with the plainspoken truth that, all poetics aside, life sucks
and pain is cyclical. Notice that Moore says he’s “fairly sure” they’ll
find refuge. There are no guarantees.
It turns out the couple found its clearing. “We moved apart for
19
a while, and then that was really good for our relationship even
though it really sucked at the time,” says Moore. “Eventually we
started hanging out and dating again without the band happening. I
realized all the stress of touring was the main cause of the breakup,
and it had a lot less to do with how we felt about each other.”
Though Moore and Tacular were back together, there were still changes
to be made within the band. The recording sessions for The Clearing
saw Tacular assuming a greater creative role, contributing more vocals
and lyrics as the group worked on the new songs at home and later
recorded tracks in Wisconsin at Justin Vernon’s April Base studio.
“We talked it out, and we just had to let go of some things and allow
each other to be who we set out to be in the pinnacle of our dreams,”
says Moore. “We had to hold onto our dreams and really allow each
other to grow and change in the midst of writing the album. And, I
think we—it sounds kind of vague, I guess—I feel like we kind of
gave each other more space this time around because we figured
out it wouldn’t work if we didn’t.”
That space is felt throughout The Clearing, which is both cavernous
and intimate. Given the luxury of time, the arrangements are more
adventurous than their previous work, incorporating ominous,
swirling post-rock textures that Moore explored in his previous band,
Ticonderoga. By expanding beyond the group’s original template of
accordion, bass drum and loud string guitar, the songs now conjure
the same sense of awe elicited by the seas, forests and skies described
in the lyrics.
Dead Oceans, the band’s label, recently released a six-minute mini-
documentary on the making of The Clearing. In the video Moore
and Tacular discuss their breakup and show us around the cabin
they’re building—Moore’s hair tucked back in a ponytail, Tacular’s
now streaked gray. They look tired.
The two sit on an old couch and take turns speaking to the camera.
“We wanted to try to make the album as beautiful as we can and
have it contain all the darkness that we have in our minds on a daily
basis,” says Tacular, Moore’s arm around her as he gazes off. “The
things we’re worried about—our relationship, the state of the world,
the environment or our dog that’s on a chain—[we wanted the album
to] contain that but also contain all the amazingness and beauty
and wonder that we have, and try to make the wonder win.”