Whilst maintaining the spare intimacy of his previous album Labor (2013), Attic Room, the long-awaited fifth album from Small Sur (out on October 7th via Worried Songs), finds Baltimore-based artist Bob Keal standing on new ground; sharing creative leadership on an album that has led to “spontaneity and collaborative adventure”.
In 2014, following the release of his Labor album, Bob Keal’s daughter was born. As you’d expect, the rhythms of his life changed, and, alongside being a partner and middle school English teacher, fatherhood loomed large, a role which became increasingly complicated during the pandemic. In the album press, Keal shares that he is a “sensitive, open person” and that the changes brought about by COVID-19 quickly led to him being a rock for those who needed him, sometimes to the detriment of his own emotions.
Thanks to the encouragement and support of long-time bandmate and friend and musician Matthew O’Connell and his brother Joseph O’Connell of Elephant Micah, Keal continued to make music during this time. With Matthew working as engineer, Keal sorted through his half-finished songs and crafted ten of them to completion. As you can hear on ‘A Clean Patch of Ground‘, Keal maintains a sparseness across which his delicate baritone vocals are further accentuated.
The most significant transformation seems to have come from a shift from the conventional full-band structure, which allowed Keal to invite even more community. Alongside Matthew on grand piano and Telecaster are Small Sur’s Andy Abelow on sax and Will Ryerson on bass. Guest include singer Cara Beth Satalino of Outer Spaces, Andy Stack (Wye Oak and Joyero), North Carolina fiddle player Joseph DeCosimo and pedal steel guitarist Dave Hadley.
Stack mentions in the press the palpable restraint of the music, which creates its own balancing act – “…you must make damn well sure that the notes chosen convey the right tones, because in Small Sur, each one weighs a ton.” That call for sensitivity seems to have been carried right the way through this album’s creation, including the mixing by Erik Hall (In Tall Buildings), who also mixed Elephant Micah’s Vague Tidings (2021) and Ryley Walker and Bill MacKay’s Land of Plenty (2015).
That restraint is certainly palpable on “A Clean Patch of Ground”. He opens with a verse that references the landscapes of his rural upbringing in South Dakota.
A thundercloud unfolding
After the rain
And I’ve been falling forward
Through the forest
Without a flame.
The song’s title references a poem by 14th Century hermit, Zen Buddhist and poet Stonehouse (Shiwu), who wrote his poetry during his free time in the woods.
A clean patch of ground after a rain
an ancient pine half-covered with moss
such things appear before our eyes
but what we do with them isn’t the same
The sensitive arrangements and Keal’s engaging yet sensitive baritone draw you in. Where this track really shines, however, is in its overall tenderness, a reflection of Keel’s sensitive nature and a nurturing instinct which has no doubt grown over the last several years as he watches his daughter grow.
The accompanying video was directed by Phil Davis (phildavisvideo.com), who shared:
For “A Clean Patch of Ground”, the video elements were gathered and assembled to compliment the pace and feeling of the music. The lyrics of the song reference a walk through forest and stream and the various shots were gathered on hikes at the Prettyboy Reservoir and the Gunpowder River in northern Baltimore County, Maryland. The song is meandering and richly layered with sound, so I wanted to match that feeling in the video by stacking sometimes up to ten different video elements drifting in and out of one another. Trees, leaves, grass, sunlight, rippling water and footage of Bob singing all mix and blend with gentle fading movement throughout.
About Phil Davis: Phil Davis is an animator, video creator and sound artist residing in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a professor of animation and digital art at Towson University and is the director and founder of the Sweaty Eyeballs Animation Festival. He also likes to play his banjo and lay down in cool streams on hot days.
A Clear Patch of Ground and the album’s second single ‘Monhegan Island, 2012’ is steaming everywhere now.
Pre-Order Attic Room via Bandcamp: https://smallsur.bandcamp.com/album/attic-room