Joan Shelley – Like The River Loves The Sea (LP)

These songs deal with the nest that is Kentucky. There’s a saying that goes something like, “When the world comes to an end, I want to be in Kentucky where it’s always 5 years behind.” The water they say is good for distilling bourbon. There is something in the water. And what it produces in its people is alternately Dionysian and Apollonian.

Woven into the melodies and rhythms of these songs are fragments of the many musical traditions that comprise what we now call Kentucky music: Irish, British, and African to name a few. The best music would be a conversation with the divine that has seen all of it, or with the oldest trees that have witnessed the whole human story. These songs are partly that conversation, at times through the lens of lovers. They are also a longing cry born of all the dividing; a call across the slowly spreading ocean. Primarily, Like the River Loves the Sea is built as a haven for overstimulated heads in uncertain times. The title (which comes from a song by Si Kahn) speaks of the inevitable and at times indifferent nature of love. Whether it be a physical place or an idea, everyone needs a place of comfort. One where we can look out again from that place of calm and see how to best act and to be in an uncertain world.