Chris’ Corner “This Is a Photography”
Hello! My name is Chris and I am super excited to be a part of the Doors At Seven team. I will be writing a variety of topics but my main focus will be this format which is known as “Chris’ Corner” where I take an album from my record collection and talk about what it means to me. The first album that I am going to talk about just so happens to be my favorite album of 2021. This is not meant to be a review but an examination of the album and how music can evolve past just the auditory form and really connect with the listener in multiple ways. So, I hope you enjoy it and maybe by the end you will be convinced to give it a listen.
Singer songwriter Kevin Morby is no stranger to change and constantly evolving his sound. The pandemic truly had not hindered his creative experience in any way, shape, or form. This is seen on the 2020 album “Sundowner” which took a much more personal approach and almost made the listener sound like they were huddled around a campfire. However, the album that I want to write about is his follow up to that album, his 2022 album “This is Photograph” which thematically could be his most cohesive album.
The idea for the album came to Morby after his father had a health scare in early 2021. Each song deals with a different aspect of a photograph whether that be the random snapshot of a man and his child on a summer day, an old lover, a dead rockstar, terrible times caught in the frame of a polaroid, or even how people always tend to look back on a time in a more positive light. The cover even poses Morby in a room with photographs surrounding the walls behind him. Moments that we wish we could stay in and ones we hope to never go back to can be captured forever and put onto a wall. We can also feel that we know someone we have never met through a photograph.
This is apparent on the centerpiece of the album “A Coat of Butterflies” which is an ode to the singer songwriter from the 90’s Jeff Buckley who tragically drowned in the Wolf River in 1997 at the age of 30. Kevin Morby sat at the spot where Buckley had walked into the river the night he died and felt a real connection with the uneasiness and uncertainty of life as a whole. Morby also states in the song “And hey man, have you heard him sing / With a voice like a symphony weeps? / I've seen him staring back at the camera / And I swear to God he looked at me”. Once again, enforcing the idea that when we look at a photograph and see anyone, for a moment, we feel as if we really know them and pairing that sort of imagery with music it can truly elevate and cause those two things to take on a life of their own.
The album resonates with me because I remember sitting in the attic looking through old photographs of family members that had passed long before I ever had the chance to meet them made me feel like I knew them. We all have moments and memories from a time that feels as if it is not that far away or can feel like a million years ago.Being forever inside a frame can make you feel closer than ever to someone or you can look at that photo and feel as if you never really knew that person at all. In conclusion, I don’t want to give too much away about the album as it truly is worth the listen and it is one that continues to grow on me each time that I listen to it. The perfect mix of Americana and melancholy I really do believe that everyone should give the album a listen.