MP3 | Laura Gibson — ‘Where Have All Your Good Words Gone?’

With her second album Beast Of Seasons (out on February 24th), Portland-based Laura Gibson delivers an intense and intimate document of what it means to be human in thrall to the glory and pain of existence. Divided into two parts, ‘Communion Songs’ and ‘Funeral Songs’, the album doesn’t flinch away from life’s bigger questions, but when framed in Laura’s soft instinctive quasi-jazz phrasing, analogue recording and Tucker Martine’s sensitive production, they seem altogether smaller, personal as well as universal.

Having given us a precious insight into her blues and folk influences with last year’s charming Six White Horses EP [review], Beast Of Seasons stitches a quietly dramatic richness to Laura’s guiding principles of simplicity and minimalism. ‘Where Have All Your Good Words Gone?’ is the second track into the ‘Funeral Songs’ segment and rolls in on a menacing drone beneath a fingerpicked acoustic intro and unsettling viola from avant-garde composer Eyvind Kang. Ostensibly a song about the fear that stems from death, it’s not so straightforward lyrically; its musings are filtered through the topsoil of a new grave. “Do you wish you were an honest man?”, sighs Laura, almost chastisingly as the weight of the world bears heavy on her mind.

Beasts Of Seasons
01 Shadows On Parade
02 Come By Storm
03 Spirited
04 Postures Bent
05 Funeral Songs
06 Where Have All Your Good Words Gone?
07 Sleeper
08 Sweet Deception
09 Glory

FREE MP3: Laura Gibson, ‘Where Have All Your Good Words Gone?’

Beast Of Seasons EPK

Tagged laura gibson