Idle Mind

Apparently I am no good at either making lists of items from over an entire year and/or remembering items for longer than a couple months. I already realized I left a favorite of ’06 off of my favorites list and here is another one that I ‘missed.’

Vetiver’s second album To Find Me Gone finally came out this year after giving us the aptly titled placeholder EP Between last year.

Andy Cabic is an unsung central figure in the ‘freak-folk’ movement - recording and playing live with Devendra Banhart for years and when the first Vetiver album came out the group was portrayed as a collaboration between the two (with guest appearances by Hope Sandoval and Joanna Newsom among others), though if you look at songwriting credits you can guess as to who was the driving force in the band.

As the album opens you can hear connections to the English folk scene that produced Nick Drake and Vashti Bunyan among others, but it has a weariness about it that makes it stand out from so many other artists and groups in this new folk/freak-folk scene. Even Idle Ties, a George Harrison-sounding more ‘upbeat’ number has a feeling of weariness throughout.

You May Be Blue, the second song on the album, is probably my favorite song on the album despite being fairly unique to the album. To me it conjures up images of driving across Arizona or New Mexico and the barren landscapes.

Now I hope that I am not making this album out to be glum or uninteresting in any way as I find it incredible to listen to. I think the weariness of it just grabs you and brings you into the world that Andy Cabic is building with his song building.