Sweet Billy Pilgrim
We Just Did What Happened and No One Came
There is a place far away in the desolate landscape of music where MTV fear to tread and where labels float like occasional tumbleweeds. It takes grit and balls to survive out here. Perversely the inhabitants of this dustbowl are usually the unlikeliest looking of souls – lilly indie guys and girls armed with only an acoustic guitar for comfort.
Surveying this scene from the front porch over a stiff drink are Sweet Billy Pilgrim. Coming on like the lovechild from an ill-advised liaison between Sparklehorse and Will Oldham, these guys have been quietly releasing records for some time now to unfettered adoration from the mp3 blogger community. ‘We Just Did…’ is the first full length release from the band with nine songs of utter beauty slowly unfurling from the speakers and nestling themselves snugly inside your head for weeks to come.
Softly plucked Banjo’s sip bourbon with Battered synths which whir and wheeze providing a stark, yet warm sounding landscape across which a very world weary voice floats gently. Hillbilly folk and a laptop don’t make for the most obvious of bedfellows yet somehow the combination works miracles as tender, gentle love songs emerge from tentative beginnings.
Recent single ‘Stars Spill Out Of Cups’ is an obvious early highlight but the genius of this album is this – none of these songs are standout singles. Not one would raise its head in the NME or trouble the programmers at Radio 1 but their understated beauty – best represented by the stunning ‘In the Water I am Beautiful’ – will affect you and stay with you in a way that no artic-dirtypretty-killer-shambles will.
These are songs that paint with bare emotion and, for this correspondent, represent one of the most beautiful sets seen in a long while.
Guest article from Ben M.
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