“air” – greg davis

“Air” – Greg Davis (download) (buy)
from Curling Pond Woods (2003)

(file expires May 5th)

Greg Davis’s cover of the Incredible String Band’s “Air” has me from the first keyboard tone, which simultaneously seems like it should be some kind of thrift store organ, but is too warm and rich to be so. Soon enough, though, come harmonies and a strum that lands somewhere between Western swing and uke-driven exotica. The verses are mostly mood — way more so than the original version — something more forceful than the wordless mmmming and just enough to gently nudge the tune along. But they’re beautiful, too. After a fairly New Agey beginning (“breathing, all creatures are”) it drops down to ominous folk mystery: “you kissed my blood, and the blood kissed me.” “Air” is a sunset in unfamiliar colors.