This is Chris and Merle from The Glister Journals as imagined by artist Katelynn Chambers, the last of four pieces commissioned from her to coincide with the release of the hardback edition of Bronze. I absolutely adore her style and her sense of color. All her work affects me quite deeply. I look forward to commissioning (and/or working with) her more in the future.
The Road Home (A continuation)
As usual for me, I didn't get on the road until much later than I had planned, but still wanted to try to make it to Roseburg, Oregon for the night. It began to rain steadily soon after I left my friends and Blaine behind. By the time I reached Mount Vernon, it was pouring so there wasn't much to see and I was preoccupied with just seeing the road ahead. But beyond Olympia the rain subsided, the sun came out, and all was green and beautiful.
Around Kalama, a large body of water to the west sparked my curiosity and I began looking for possible offramps to get closer and explore. Keeping in mind how far I wanted to get today (and how far I still had to go) I didn't want to get too far from the highway. Unfortunately nothing presented itself until Woodland. There, signs for the mysterious 'Port of Woodland' and the even more exotic sounding 'Dike Access' proved too alluring, and I had to strike off in search of whatever I could find.
Adding to the sense of adventure was what appeared to be a fair sized fire not too far distant.
Considering how green everything was, and that it had been pouring all morning, I felt relatively safe and determined to find water, if not the source of the smoke.
What I didn't realize then (but see now that I am looking at a physical map) was that the river, the Columbia, is actually the border with Oregon, though it lay north to south (or vice versa, I don't remember which way the water was flowing) and that the other side of the river was in fact Oregon and had been for quite a while. Isn't geography wonderful. Anyway, it was very pretty, but I couldn't find any free river access so headed back the way I had come. I sorely wanted to stop and take pictures of all the emergency vehicles and the almost completely burned down house, but wasn't sure whether that would be okay. It was obviously a training exercise, but I wasn't sure how they'd feel about my taking pictures. Sometimes I don't mind risking a little trouble, but trouble takes time and I still had a long way to drive.
I finally found a place to take some decent pictures just before turning back onto the Dike Access Road.
Having quite a way to go before reaching Roseburg, I pulled over at a rest stop somewhere in Oregon to stretch my legs and snooze for a few minutes. It was an extremely pretty area and I wish I had written down the name of the place (if it had one).
Music
For this leg of the journey I listened mostly to Keane's latest album, Strangeland. It wasn't until I had got it home from the store and ripped it onto my computer that I found that it was a Japanese release with bonus tracks. Goody. The bad part of that is that all the track information is in Japanese, which meant manually renaming everything. Luckily the song titles transferred just fine to my MP3 player so at least I could see what they were while I traveled.
Now, I have to say that, if you like Keane's sound, you will probably like this album, but I can't say there was anything that surprised me or bowled me over right away. The opening song, "You Are Young," is nice but the second track, "Silenced By The Night", jumps out as definitive Keane:
The following track has an even more distinctive sound. Keane utilizes very similar (sometimes exactly the same) interval patterns revolving around 2, 3, and 5. For example, "Disconnected" uses the pattern: 5-3-2-5-3-2-5-3.
This same pattern can be heard in "Day Will Come." Past Keane songs you may remember with distinctive 2, 3, 5 patterns are:
"Is It Any Wonder" (2-2-3-3-5-5-3-2)
"Nothing In My Way" (2-3-2-3-5 2-3-2-3-5 2-3-2-3)
"Crystal Ball" 5 3-6-5 2-3-L7 2-3-L7 5-5-5-3-2-3-L7
There are other motifs Keane uses, but these are the ones that jump out at me and make the songs so darn catchy.
"Sovereign Light Cafe is another that took hold of me immediately but for a completely different reason. The opening melody is exactly like a song I wrote eons ago. No, you've never heard it and you never will, but it took me way back to days when I spent my time writing music instead of words. The lyrics grabbed me next; so evocative. It took me back to days and nights spent in Santa Monica, along the beach front, on the pier; it also took me back to England where I lived for several years, and time spent at Brighton, Southampton, other seaside towns. When I got home and saw the video, it resonated with me even more. It's now one of my favorites.
I enjoyed the whole album, some tracks standing out more than others, and even the bonus tracks are good. My favorite of these (also reminding me strongly of England) is "The Boys" but I couldn't find a video for it. I guess you'll just have to buy the album!
I will leave you with this, set to beautiful locations and subbed in Spanish, "Somewhere Only We Know" (3-2-3-5-3-2 LOL)
Note: All original text and materials by or commissioned by B. B. Shepherd (including music reviews) are copyright 2012-2013 to China Blue Publishing.
Reviews for The Glister Journals: Bronze
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