Damien Jurado – In the Shape of a Storm
Mama Bird Recording Co/Loose (EU) – 12 April 2019
Having spent the last few years on a musical quest into visionary realms touching on religion and science fiction, powered by drums, electronics and psychedelic sonics, Jurado returns to earth for a hushed, introspective acoustic album accompanied only by Josh Gordon on high-strung guitar, largely comprising of songs written many years back but never finding a home until now.
Drawing on themes of commitment, beguilement, being emotionally exposed and adrift, the album opens with Lincoln, written way back in 1998, where he says he’s “been twisting in the vapors and the fumes”, the lines “Dear shipwrecked, I, too, am waiting to be saved/I had my prayers and praises all sent back” resonant in their despair.
One of the most immediately infectious numbers, the waltzing shuffle of Newspaper Gown teases the nature of the singer’s relationship “Our friends think we’re lovers or so I have heard/And they try for confessions and I say not a word” and his worry that, willing to let go but not to fall, if he does own up to wanting it to be for real then he risks the chance of losing what they have “What if I told you…all I want is you/Would it destroy you? Would you not want me around? Am I a new pair of scissors for your newspaper gown?”.
Set to a slow walking bassline, Oh Weather is a 67-second number that introduces the weather and nature imagery that percolates throughout as he sings of wanting to be out of the storm of being separated from his lover, a similar pulsating guitar pattern providing the backbone of South as the spirit of Leonard Cohen hovers over a number he describes as being “collage of sorts, or collection of snapshots, that center around two characters”, these being “Tom and I out on the hillside/Waving at planes and pulling our wrists”, closing with the almost playful “You take New York and I will marry Lee/Let’s see who comes back worse.”
The need to share a life and to be complete is at the heart of Thrown Me Now Your Arms, its message wrapped up in “We’re not meant to be on our own/Is this now the time we let go/And cling to one another, giving life?”, here using the image of tides and shores, that same tenderness washing the more uptempo strum of Where You Want Me To Be (“This is how I want my day/Spending every moment at your side”) with its hook title refrain.
The title referring to the moon, that notion of finding the moment extends to Silver Ball, the most complex of the simple musical arrangements, with “Finally, stars will align/Finally, it’s our turn to shine” before it reaches the title track, another Cohen-like waltz that here introduces both doubt and destiny into the romantic equation with “If I showed up in the shape of a storm/Would you recognize me?” as, in a decidedly Leonard-esque moment, he asks “If I go sailing into the unknown/What are my chances of ever reaching your shore?”
The idea that to everything there is a season and a time and that we have to wait for paths to align immediately resurfaces in the nimbly fingerpicked optimistic outlook of Anchors – “I still go on seeing you as mine/Just not at the present time”, the album coming to a close, the lyrics again referencing emotional anchors “And though I have tried to untie from your anchor, I can’t/I am no good at giving up” with the slow waltz sway-along strum of Hands On The Table and its faith in the healing nature of love and memory “A moment suspended in time that I keep on rewind” as he ends confessing “I was crippled and blurry the day I walked into your frame/I’m so focused now on your name.”
Having spent several restless years in search and motion, it would seem Jurado has finally found a shore on which to set anchor and land, the fact that he wrote these songs many years ago fittingly echoing the sense of waiting for time to unfold its plans.
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