This is a strange song to speak about – it’s in one of those topics that inspires a “what the mighty wind are you talkin’ about?” when you hear it. The Montvales on today’s song were inspired, Molly Rochelson explains, by “falling in love with my partner (who initially moved to East TN to go to a Bible College where dancing wasn’t allowed) at a Knoxville dive bar. The feeling of recognizing something startlingly familiar in a stranger and realizing that, seemingly out of nowhere, you’re in it together from now on.” Nothing strange about falling in love, but for goodness sake Baptists, get yourselves some learnin’. Let the Americana UK Bible school help y’all out: Psalm 149:3: “Let them praise his name with dancing“, Ecclesiastes 3:4 : “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance“. Have you people no knowledge of The Byrds at all? To everything turn, turn, turn? Not ringing any bells of freedom?
Anyway, The Montvales are Sally Buice and Molly Rochelson and they grew up in the state of Tennessee, and oh boy did they not fit in. Not at all. They observed political violence in their own communities – attacks on churches that were organising hubs, the burning down of a planned parenting centre. And, again, WTF – you don’t like planned parenting because unplanned parenting is so superior? Get real, man. But back to the story – so Buice and Rochelson met and soon they hatched their plan and the plan was, naturally, folk music.
Buice explains that politically driven folk music gave her a sense of agency in dark times, and she’s always wanted to be part of that musical lineage: “I’ve always thought that would be the best possible way to do music – I don’t always set out to convey a particular message. I think it works better to see how politics obviously informs everything about our lives, and braid that into the songs.”
With two albums to their name, ‘Loud & Clear‘ is the duo’s first release since they signed with Free Dirt Records (the home of Jake Blount, Willi Carlisle, Liv Greene amongst others) and the runes would seem to indicate that this is just the first glimpse of what will be album number three, their first on the new label.
