American Foursquare is a gift for the homebound. Patient and observant, Denison Witmer's acoustic record carefully follows his family life and resounds into the halls of your own head and heart. His graceful songs are filled with appreciation and wonder for his wife, his kids, his friends, and his recent return to his hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The songs do not seek to question or solve but to unfold what is most fulfilling. Music critics often ignore records about domestic life—contented, no less—but this 41-year-old married father of five found it deeply moving.
After relocating his family from Philadelphia to a 100-year-old house in Lancaster, Witmer started a carpentry business and took a long break from recording. American Foursquare is his first album since 2013 (released on Sufjan Steven’s Asthmatic Kitty label) and is created with the same attentiveness you imagine he crafts the Mennonite furniture in his workshop: sturdy, plainspoken, and heartfelt. “I’ve two children and a wife," he sings, "when the day folds over, I don’t have much extra time."
Witmer’s guitar fingering is lovely and understated, accompanied here by pianos, strings, and drums. His arrangements typically expand in the middle with beautiful choruses and bridges, where his pleasing voice shares little discoveries he is making each day. He sings about his old home (“An American Foursquare / On a tree-lined avenue / What am I going to do now?”); raising strong children (“How do you raise a confident and sensitive child? / Why would you cage an animal that wants to run wild?”); the salve of music (“Lay me down / on a river of music / and push me out / back into myself”); and his former life touring with dear friends (“Six weeks straight on the road / driving late after the shows / sleep in places nobody knows").
On "Simple and True," to ease his restlessness and make himself useful while his wife is out of town, Witmer folds laundry, washes dishes, and rearranges furniture. "Then I found your picture and put it in a frame / Thought about how ten years later I still feel the same." It plays out like your home, or a home you would like to visit, unfussy and filled with abiding love.
The stunner is "Birds of Virginia," backed by the talents of Karen and Don Peris from The Innocence Mission. It is Witmer's devotional to his wife and one of the most resplendent you will hear.
you are the mother of my children
You are the calm and my wild
You are my everything
You are the birds of Virginia
As his imagery evokes scattered birds taking flight, it is an apt metaphor for the expansiveness and mystery of the women we may share our lives with, transcending from the ordinary into something approaching the divine.
No comments:
Post a Comment