CENTRIC: Archive Series Volume No. 1
The need to look back, to cherish that which exists no longer, can prove to be either a projectional force, or detrimental hindrance in the minds of creatives. Years are spent building, crafting, and destroying our thoughts and veritable baggage, continuously obsessed in keeping the best and discarding the worst, but usually ending up somewhere in the mezzo. In our work's growth, we find a reconciliation in remembering why we once did things a certain way, why they are different now, and what we can expect to become before the end. In essence, change, and return-to-that-from-which-we-have-changed, are both, inevitably, progress. And Sam Beam continues to disclose his own means and methods in the effort: evolving, but without abandoning his flock to unfamiliarity.
Iron & Wine remains for many of us a cornerstone of the soft-whisper mentality we scroll for in the late afternoon, with a french press and hand-rolled cigarette, calming us with quiet musings on fear, sex, death, and the usual. We pine for that perfect spring morning where "Dead Man's Will" takes hold, that summer night where "Boy With a Coin" keeps the drowsiness at bay just a little longer, that fall afternoon where "Walking Far From Home" seems more an inner monologue than a confession, and that winter evening where "Upward Over the Mountain" merges our collective loneliness together, offering communion. These songs are season-less escapades into the unified ground of existence, where story, in all of its crests and troughs, gives the complete picture. In this comfort, Iron & Wine's latest release Archive Series Volume No. 1 offers the B-sides of our favorite 2002 debut The Creek Drank the Cradle, a subtle peek into Beam's beginnings as a home-recording professor.
This retrospective approach comes at an appropriate time for Beam, career-wise. He has journeyed far and wide in his previous endeavors, leaving us last with 2013's Ghost on Ghost: a jazzy reach for expansion into the realms of full-band musicianship, with a corresponding tour that solidified Beam as a more-than-capable band leader, on top of his veteran status as a songwriter. Now he has fully embraced the magic of his family years as a father of (at least) five, with sparse tour legs scattered throughout the year. This is, seemingly, a time for reflection in Beam's discography. It is a time to look back and understand what exactly this house was built on in the first place: an unsullied determination to feel, to record that feeling, and to share that recording. We can hear the pseudo-naivety in the young song-smith's tremblings, the 4-track scratches more substantial than they would be on any other band's demos. This is not a "hits" album, nor is it a "transformative" album, in terms of style or state of mind. This is a "re-discovery" album, one that serves to counter the all-too-familiar release banter of "rock stars saving the world," simply by bearing past works forward, as something worth adding to the conversation. This is Beam saying hello, again, to some old friends.
This conversation is strengthened by Beam's return to film, with his latest documentary release Dreamers and Makers are my Favorite People, a 30-minute concert video exploring the innards of the decisions behind Archive 1, and Beam's debut live performance of the collection. We truly see Beam striving to return to the source of why we dream, make, sing, and write. We see these old friends of his defending their relevance to the death, resolving us to the reality of why we once did things a certain way, why they are different now, and what we can expect to become before the end: a conversation, and inevitably, a progression.