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Great Northern – Trading Twilight For Daylight

Great Northern - Trading Twilight For DaylightI’m back, more or less. I’ve gone without internet for a while. Things seem to be hooked up and running at the new pad. I’ve been taken off of suicide watch. We’re good. And you know what? It’s impossible to get a feel for how much time a computer sucks into the void until it’s unplugged for a while. How does one fill the hours?

I’ve had help from Great Northern. This is one of those albums that I’ve had sitting around for months, knowing I had to give it a spin and see what the fuss was about. Since giving it a try at last, it’s become the “default disc,” that thing I put in when I don’t want to think about choosing music, but I want something excellent. And the hours, they are filled.

I’m not surprised that I find their brand of lush melancholia appealing. They have close ties with Earlimart, having actually intermingled with Espinoza and Co. in the way of membership (central band member Solon Bixler once played in that band.) I find that anything with close ties to Earlimart tends to have this gauzy aura of worshipfulness about it, like those foil Jesus paintings that heliotrope when you walk by. Maybe that’s just the effect of Rachel Stolte’s vocals, but whatever the case, I find “Trading Twilight For Daylight” lovely.

Great Northern – “Our Bleeding Hearts”

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