Iron & Wine - Manchester Academy 2 - 26/10/07
Listening to previous offerings of the bearded Sam Beam (better known in musical circles as Iron & Wine), it is clear why he has a special place in the hearts of alt-folk fans both sides of the pond. In essence, the man writes simple but beautiful songs, set to unbearably pretty fingerpicked guitar and sung with a voice as soft as a multi-generational American patchwork quilt. And Zach Braff is a fan, I’ve heard, and that always helps.
Nevertheless, no number of celebrity endorsements can do justice to Beam’s emotionally resonant lo-fi creations. His bare, steel-stringed arpeggios are used as a perfect accompaniment to his lyrical obsessions: melancholia-tinged tales of love and life lost in the endless expanses of rural America.
With both aspects of his performance inextricably linked, it is tempting to view Beam as a mouthpiece for a place and time: his music feels oddly familiar, but only in the sense that it encapsulates perfectly an image, feeling, or a phrase firmly rooted in the society in which it was produced. Much of Beam’s work seems reminiscent of the stringed sadness of Nick Drake, had he grown up in a trailer park in South Carolina rather than the Hampden Court hedge maze.
Yet, through the delicate, often fragile sound of Iron & Wine, there is a clear edge; a tapestry of instrumentation shimmers incessantly behind many of his pastoral anecdotes, disturbing seemingly serene soundtracks with grittier guitar and percussion. This is shown no better than on current LP The Shepard’s Dog, which appears to embrace a more diverse, undulating alternative to the sparse showings of earlier albums.
These Pitchfork-endorsed rock credentials are enhanced further by his previous live work, as the last time Iron & Wine graced our shores was as part of a joint tour with gothic roots legends Calexico. Yet, whilst 2007 finds Iron & Wine once more in solo territory, it is clear that Beam’s balladic approach to acoustic Americana will be presented as the lord intended: gently whispered subtle snapshots of god-fearing folk far removed from the strains and stresses of modern life.
