The Accidentals – Time Out EP Session #1
Independent – 7 May 2021
The Accidentals are a female-fronted multi-instrumentalist trio comprising Sav Buist, Katie Larson and Michael Dause, they’ve been knocking around for a few years, gradually building both following and reputation, both in America and across Europe. They’ve clearly also accrued an impressive array of admirers among their Americana peers, as this, the first of two EP sessions, testifies with co-writes from some of the best in the business and all of whom were formative influences on their own music.
With Buist on lead and violin and Larson providing cello, they kick off with the swoon of Wildfire, a number written over Zoom with Kim Richey, that, opening with the chorus “Who knew we were drunk on borrowed time… waiting on a wildfire?”, reflects its genesis on being forced to cancel a festival appearance and return home in the wake of the pandemic (“ we’d just moved into town/We were on a mission lost and broke/Just as all the pieces started falling into place/All our plans went up in smoke”), the song speaking of wanting more time.
Again featuring strings, veteran folkie Tom Paxton’s the collaborator on the minimally arranged Anyway, a number which continues on the same theme (“We’re at a point we’ve never been/I can’t say we’ll be okay/We’ll just have to take it day by day”), but also serves as both a reflection on the state of the nation as they sing “Open blinds, shuttered minds/We’re living in the strangest times” and perhaps a troubled relationship (“All I am is what you see, this is all that I can be”).
Perhaps a lesser-known name, although she has written for Bonnie Raitt, Trisha Yearwood and Art Garfunkel, Maia Sharp is their collaborator on Might As Well Be Gold, a midtempo, strings-adorned walking beat strum infused with positivity about appreciating what you have (“We don’t have a big place/We’re living in a suitcase, waiting out the storm/Yeah, the pipes are freezing over/It’s only getting colder, but we’ve been keeping warm… Cause look at what we have, we get diamonds/Out of broken glass, it’s just like us/All that we can hold are bits and pieces/Might as well be gold shining in the dust”) and not letting other people’s comments on your life get to you (“Your sister’s on the phone, and I know how the conversation goes… she could find a thorn in any rose/No, it’s not up to her to measure/If it’s trash or if it’s treasure”).
Returning to a more familiar collaborator, Larson on lead with Rick Buist on piano, Night Train is a teaming with Dar Williams that takes a trip across America, journeying through its past and changes (“From breadlines to cafes, the buildings have worn over time/For every American dreamer, a mountain to climb/Orchards and fields and the harvest from April to frost/Men forging steel into bridges their children would cross”), of industrial decline (“The rusty old combines and factories rose from the past/And history fell in the shadows that each of them cast”) and through personal memories (“From Memphis to Denver I thought of my grandmother’s hands/Pressing that fifty cent piece in my palm saying ‘Take this as far as you can’”). It broaches the current divided nation as she sings “Deep down I know I’m still fanning the flames just by/Trying to find the right person to blame/Cause it’s easier putting a face to your fear than a name”, but pointedly observes “the good and the evil are just regular people”, concluding on a note of hope in that “The train is still rolling, the bridge is still holding, and there is still work to be done”.
The final track in this batch, Larson again singing lead, is a co-write with Jaimee Harris and Mary Gauthier, building on the ray of hope with the simple voice and acoustic picked hymnal All Shall Be Well, their voices coming together as sing how “Walls will be built, walls will be torn down/Hope will be lost, faith will be found… Wars will begin, wars will end/Hearts will break, hearts will mend”, but “In the end, all shall be well”. Listening to this EP, you can only believe it will.
With three studio albums already under their belt, this further underscores their rising star as musicians, singers and songwriters, The Accidentals are most definitely going to happen.
https://www.theaccidentalsmusic.com/
Photo Credit: Aryn Madigan