Steve Gunn – The Unseen In Between
Matador Records – 18 January 2019
With 2019 marking the release of his fifteenth record, The Unseen In Between, it is safe to say the name Steve Gunn has now become somewhat synonymous with the more alternative end of guitar driven music across the pond. Bastion of American primitive fingerstyle and ex-guitarist with slacker whiz Kurt Vile, as well as proving to be an accomplished songwriter in his own right, Gunn is also a prominent collaborator. He’s worked with Appalachian old-time outfit, the Black Twig Pickers, soul-folksinger M.C. Taylor (with Hiss Golden Messenger) and has flared his avant-garde outer edges as part of the Gunn-Truscinski Duo. Additional credits also include adding to the dark dream-weavery of Michael Chapman’s most recent LP, True North, acting as producer.
Those following Gunn’s solo career will know he has developed a unique sound entirely of his own, with an emphasis on complex guitar composition always at the core of his music. Through conscientiously developed textural arrangements, pristine production and a good deal of effect pedal know-how, he shapes a soundscape that opens up before you like an undulating panorama, offering up a vast expanse for the imagination to roam freely. This sense of abstraction is also mirrored in Gunn’s lyrics as Pitchfork points out, comparing the transitory, motorik flux of past releases with the rooted feeling of place on the new record:
“(Gunn) has written often about motion and travel: the life of the observer rather than the participant, viewing the world through the windshield (…) TUIB is more about the destination than the journey, and that destination is his late father’s former neighbourhood in West Philadelphia”
If this release does stand apart from past efforts it could be due to a breakthrough Steve recently underwent, which he touched upon in a recent Rolling Stone interview: “I came into songwriting in a weird, reverse trajectory. I was into complicated guitar playing, and I never stopped to consider what the process is to write a simple song, or how difficult it is.” The fluid thumb-picking pattern on The Unseen In Between’s only entirely acoustic number and prize-cut Stonehurst Cowboy would certainly support this claim. Revolving around spry fingerwork it has a depth of narrative and a sombre resonance that makes an immediate impression, recalling both the longing of Chapman and Richard Thompson’s songwriting:
“Shadow in the sea of a dream to me. Stonehurst lonely. Back then friends, brothers and me, all got sent away. Came back feeling so undone, without much to say. Sat for hours, stared at your flowers, found ways to hide the pain. Stole your car, drove real far, no one can explain”
A tribute to his late father and their “Dear house on 69th” Gunn’s fractured wordplay frames the song and allows you to fill the gaps in your own memory with phrases floating in and out of view, much like the tags of graffiti that act as his backdrop in the single’s video. An ageless melancholy seems to lurk beneath it, with the opening refrain like déjà-vu occurring once more, adding to the creeping swell of its nostalgic tide.
Album opener New Moon finds us in a more recognisable territory, riding out the afternoon daze with a soft-psych strum and acoustic/bass interplay, first bringing to mind Donovan and later Beechwood Sparks, as a harmonica’s sigh eases-in mid-track. Again we are chasing images like sunspots darting across our field of vision, as Gunn yarns “to that place no one seems to know” in his refrained manner. Vagabond retains the same vibrancy, as staccato keys and a slight acid-folk feel (à la Woods or the spaced-calm of MV & EE) pair with Meg Baird’s (of Espers) airy presence, only making Gunn’s cryptic reflections more entrancing. Again and again, lines like “lovers in a shadow of a crooked dream” or “keep a hold on to your strangeness; we’re rollin’ home” crop up and draw you in closer.
Morning Is Mended and Luciano have a quiet subtly to them as they wane and lean into the same cosmic cycle as Beck’s Morning Phase, with the latter including sedated vocal trills and a sublime shifting second-half, awash with meditative waves of reverb. Closing out with a grand, beatific Bill Fay display on Paranoid with its word-for-word doubled-up verse-chorus repetition, for the final time Gunn sings of a “shapeless face among the weeds” and a “landscape (that) looks so different than your photo books” before falling away altogether to chimes, flash drum fills and a free-folk outro.
The Unseen In Between is befitting of its title; a mysterious and mesmeric edgeland offering glimpses into the underbelly of a half-remembered neighbourhood, and the trials and habits of its outcasts. It could be argued that the view is too familiar for some, causing them to wander and grow listless. Upon looking deeper however, many will find solace in the oblique tales and tragedies. Those relatable human moments, which can be found right under your nose. For others this view will always hold up; these listeners will soften and slip between the melody altogether, recognising the euphoric rise and pull of Gunn’s wistful arrangements, revelling in those perfect fleeting moments caught out the corner of one’s eye. Overall if you find you don’t stray, you might just become rapt by something that really does have the power to take your breath away altogether.