Dear Companion will be released Tuesday, 16 February 2010, from SubPop records. 

(Photo:  SubPop.com)

The new collaborative album from Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore (and featuring Yim Yames) is a mural of loving odes to their native lands and peoples.  Though I spent this Valentine’s Day far away from those Appalachian hills, the music and the sentiment had equal meaning in the hollers of western Oregon.  The sounds of fresh new music, lovin’ on some old-timey topics, inspired me to adventure, and to some words of my own… 

Windshield wipers slapped in time,
as I raced o’er the land with me valentine,
down ‘5 and upward into the hills. 
From the valley of the Umpqua came a roaring welcome,
much grown-up since the far off mountain
cloaked in mist and guarded by a congress of firs. 

I chose their music to take us there,
my dear companion ran her fingers through my hair,
and two ol’ Kentucky homeboys laid it down. 
She closed her eyes while cello hummed,
the banjo made her snicker,
but the “flyrock blues” set her feet right back on ground.

Got to the wooden bridge at Fern Falls,
scrambled like younguns up the ravine wall,
and the lyrics, like water on rocks, ran steady in our mind.
Looking out over a world of greens,
hiding spots and drinkable streams,
We found a peace that Kentucky may never find.

(Umpqua River, Oregon.  Photo:  Johnny Kilroy)

It was a big holiday in the wet wild woods,
slapping some mud on my brand new boots,
and puppy dog wiggling, jonesin’ for my peanut buttah jelly.
Like hell you will, dog…well maybe just a bite
girl pulled long and hard on a bottle of cider,
we left with sopping pant legs and happy bellies.

As I wrote in my review of Dear Companion, it is a work of the soul, full of love for people and place.  And really, wherever you are, peoples is peoples, and mountains is mountains.  Peoples in mountains love them some mountains.  If you loves the mountains, and you love some lovin,’ then this new album is essensh.

(Appalachia, unmolested.  Photo:  Johnny Kilroy)

Were you one of the folks who forgot about Valentine’s Day?  That’s okay.  You can totally redeem yourself to your…dearest companion…with a fine gift of the album…“Dear Companion”.  Ah…ha ha…aha ha ha.  Puns.  They’ll understand.  For the good things we wait, and hope.

Purchase.