Saw the fields empty in Autumn again
Another day is done
Isn't it amazing what goodness it gives
Call me dear, call me, call gently
Call me home
Fire burns brightly but I'm not one to see
All of the ashes were sparkling
Fire burn easy don’t take alight on me
Embers falling and widening
We had it all
We had it all
We had it all
Oh anna you must have seen the ghost
It was hiding out right underneath your coat
True believer can’t let the fire burn out
Every roadside flower quickens too the mouth
I burned a fire for the future
I burned a fire for the past
I lit a candle for the bread we break and pass around this table
And hope it lasts
Can we
Have it all
Again
What seafaring fools
We'd be just to try
Stretched out on a placid
Aegean under sky
The war's over
So long ago
I already told you
I wait so patient here
Your own kind of swaggering
And out at the mast
Waiting to come home
The queen of a capture
Relieve us somehow
Take all that I have and
Take all that i want
Outlast
Outlast the coming storm
Don't throw us over
Overboard
Wine dark sea
Swelling to take all of me
The queen of a capture
What fools and ghosts
Sometime we will have it
Sometime we will want
Sometime we will have it
Sometime we will want
Sometime
I will follow you into any great fire
Just not the one we’ve set here today
You could not prepare me for this
No persuasive words
No little notes
No scraps of flames
I want you, I want you, to know
I didn’t mean to whisper with the words I said
Hoping to hoping to know
If this was redder than the ashes glow
This little, this little flame
If it were only yours
I might be able to overlook
The way you look at me
I want you I want you I want you I want you to know
I didn’t hear a whisper in the words you said
Hoping to hoping to know
If this was redder than the ashes glow
White hot
Flash bright
Hold me closer like it's
Red, stop
Why not let the
Fire grow hotter than the
Yellow ray shinin
On your eyes
Tonight, tonight
Be bright
Be bright
Be brighter than
Tomorrow ever promised
Yet the sky breaks open
To the shapes your shoulders
Make into
Your eyes
Your eyes
Your eyes
Your eyes
White fire shines on the
Last row of trees
For the shadows not metaphor
It’s a good time to wandering in pines
Like a lover tell me weather stories
In the meadow
Under nothing
But a yellow
Hot bright and blue
Can we run against the moving shade
That moves with all the motion over everything we've made
Hands that grasp, on your face
Every morning, every, all the light that we have made
In a dream, I see everything
Arrayed arrayed arrayed arrayed
Can you flash white
Flash red
Bright like a firework
Lit up on the lamp
Wrong day like it's right
Jump high sideswipe
Pull the light to another's eyes
Bright bright brighter
Than be bright
Be gentle and
Stop here at the
Marvel of the moon
Yes I'm angry
And I'm not supposed to be
I know, I know, I’m the one coming clean
Picturesque scene
No mistaking the scheme
I'd be frozen acrylic
In the painting you're making of me
And we'll someday be happy
We’ll not never be happy
Up in heaven they say we'll be happy
Yes I'm angry
And I'm not supposed to be
What once was gone
Placed on a stage
I’d rather hang there in foyers of yesterday
Just throw the stone right into the frame
This street is empty, that street is empty
The car goes passing quietly from this to that
No one will hear us laughing
The sidewalks are empty of anyone
The cover's thin, the air is open up above
The season's ending early, the leaves are on the ground
And we are hand in hand
And we are hand in hand
And we are hand in hand in hand in hand
In hand in hand in hand in hand
The sky is like a glove
No one can hear us laughing
No one can hear us loving
No one can hear us laughing
No one can hear us loving
The sky is opening up until you realize
I can see you I can know you
I can see you I can know you
This street is empty, that street is empty
The car goes silently passing quietly through our laughing
No one can hear us laughing
No one can hear us loving
No one can hear me crying
Cause I'm not anymore
What's the one they rung about
The one they sung about
The one they talked about
Said all those words down to me
Can't erase the ringing now
With words irregular and loud
Not clear enough
Oh oh oh can't hear you
The bells tolled so long
The birds all moved on
To the next town's trees
The bells tolled so long
The birds all moved on
To the next town's trees
Ten thousand yards
A hundred weeks
The rains still come
And hide our feet
Don’t choose to fall
Just take and leave
Don’t wait and see
So many lies to leave
The bells tolled so long
The birds all moved on
To the next town trees
I'm for sure that I'm the one you didn't want
To go out to your war
At the walls of Jericho we close the door
It ricochets our names
Once before you at least imagine that you went to war
I heard it in your sleep
Grand as horses on the hillside looking fierce
And galloping to their knees
Won't this stone rattle a little bit
When I yell at it
Won't this wall shake within the bones of it
When I kick and scream and pour out just
'bout everything in a god damn fiery scene
The stones wouldn't shake
The stones wouldn't break
The stones just stayed right in their place
No one's goin to war today
No one's goin to war today
No one's goin to war today
No one should have died today
about
‘Next Town’s Trees’ is an 8 track album by Boise indie-folk musician, Jesse Blake Rundle, produced with bandmate and engineer, Nate Agenbroad.
“I wrote these songs during a time of immense change in my life: I was finally leaving the church, uncovering my sexuality, starting my first relationship with a man, figuring out joy in sobriety, and settling into my life as a musician,” he says. Jesse explores themes of modern identity and self discovery with a poet’s eye for detail. His acute observations are capable of catharsis and comfort during dark times.
“Can we have it all again?” Jesse sings on the first track ‘Fire.’ As an opening, ‘Fire’ not only establishes the album’s mood but is a story in itself. A farm house burns on the Kansas hills. Everything is lost. But, there is still a desire to be present: “I burned a fire for the future, I burned a fire for the past, I lit a candle for the bread we break and pass around this table, and hope it lasts.” Like the rest of the album, the arrangements here are ambitious; synthesizers and horns augment Jesse’s humble acoustic guitar and his trenchant vocals. ‘Fire’ sets the stage for an album that will not diminish to embers.
After the opener, the album changes tact with “Fools and Ghosts” - the first single. Anchored by a beguiling guitar line, the song is equally indebted to Radiohead as it is to sailor sea shanties. It’s the sort of quick, catchy, immediately likable tune that becomes more rewarding on repeat listens.“Take all that I have and take all that I want,” Jesse belts during the chorus, offering himself to a metaphorical and literal raging sea. The central hook rises and falls throughout the song, nearly disappearing during an unexpected and off-kilter bridge, before finally dissolving in the song's final seconds. With this track and “Fire,” Jesse has offered two of the best folk rock tracks in recent memory.
And if the album had been content to deliver mid-tempo rockers, it would have been a triumph. But it’s clear Jesse has more ambitious goals. After the opening couplet, the album takes a breath, lowers its defenses and opens up a softer side. ‘I Want you to Know’ explores a troubled relationship.“I want you , I want you to know, I didn’t mean to whisper in the words I said” Jesse sings in a electronic-singed register. The song has the timber of an emotionless confession, two lovers flatly coming to terms with each other, but just when the song should fade out, drift away on a note of pained resignation, a brass section emerges and imbues the track with unexpected optimism.
Then, the stage is set for “White Hot,” the second single and anchor of the entire album. Of the song, Jesse says, “My first experiences with love after coming out were some of the warmest, richest experiences I’ve ever had.” A classic love song, “White Hot” features a whispering Jesse as he attempts to articulate the indescribable: young love. Babbling through three verses before sighing into a stunning chorus, the song evokes dreamy innocence that somehow avoids feeling simple or naive. His voice becomes as rhythmic as a snare drum as the track becomes more propulsive : “Like a lover tell me weather stories in the meadow under nothing but a yellow hot bright and blue.” The song understands how rare it is to fall in love, and every time it happens, it’s a miracle.
“White Hot”s buoyancy seeps into the following track, “Yes, I’m Angry,” but this time the lyrics run perpendicular to a jaunty earworm. “Yes, I’m Angry/ and I’m not supposed to be / I know, I know, I’m the one coming clean,” he sings on the opening verse. It is a frank depiction of rage, one that expresses the nuances and paradoxes of human anger. Is it true that life’s bitter fights and disagreements descend from our most loving and cherished relationships? Here, Rundle holds tentatively to a happy future: “and we’ll someday be happy / we’ll not never be happy.” The music itself reflects his uncertainty. The production takes the song’s rich textures and wrings out every conceivable thought of empathy. The song is fulsome and autumnal despite itself; Jesse can rage, but love is bound to spring from such concentric swirls.
With ‘Hand in Hand’ Jesse is back to romance. He sings “No one can hear us laughing, no one can hear us loving” with a soft echo pulsating. It’s a procession designed for deep contemplation and evoking the wet streets and fall trees of Boise, Idaho. It’s warm, respectful, and coming to the denouement, even spiritual. Another departure on an album that displays the full gambit of subtle diversions.
Out of an unfocused haze rises the title track, ‘Next Town’s Trees.’ “In 2007 I spent a year in Santa Fe,” Rundle says of the song. “I’d often sit in this park where the nearby monastery bell tower would ring, but it would only reach the park bench where I sat when the wind blew it in. That’s the image of this song for me. A bell-tower that’s now in the distance and almost a memory. It’s a story of moving on from my evangelical faith.”
From the first moments of this track, it’s clear the album has also moved on: past folk rock, past pop music structure, past assumptions on what albums must be in 2022. Pulsating plumes of synths emerge – almost post-rock in their intensity – and then Rundle’s voice pitches itself over the cacophony. The song is the album’s definitive statement, swooping and soaring like a sermon. “The bells tolled so long, the birds all moved on, to the next town’s trees.” It’s another spiritual peak, non-linear and stunning. It’s as experimental as Jesse Blake Rundle has ever ventured, but it might also become his calling card.
“This is a song, and even an album, for the deconstructionists, questioning their evangelical upbringing or whatever constraints they feel they need to leave behind.” Rundle says, “I’ve come to my own answers about faith and I’m trying to tell my story of what I’ve found on the other side.”
With seven songs done, the album is almost complete. But before closing, Rundle offers a protest song in the aftermath of January 6, 2021. “I’d spent years living around the capitol complex in DC - skateboarding down the hill with friends, biking, and just walking through the grounds while catching up with distant friends on the phone. It was tragic to see it turn into a place of violence. I wrote this song out of my despair and anger at that scene.” Like elsewhere, lush arrangements replicate a devotional religious aura: “The stones wouldn’t break, the stones wouldn’t shake, the stones just stayed right in there place.” Another brass section begins to blare, and we leave the album in a moment of stunned reverie, drifting in contemplation of humanity’s better nature.
‘Next Town’s Trees’ offers variety and vulnerability across its 8 tracks, but more importantly, each moment depends on another and has been perfectly sequenced across a sonic arc. A front-to-back listen reveals new layers, circling just beneath what you thought you knew but could only guess at. In short, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and with ‘Next Town’s Trees’s release, Jesse Blake Rundle has found his voice.
credits
released March 3, 2023
All songs written by Jesse Blake Rundle
Produced by Jesse Blake Rundle
Engineered by Nate Agenbroad
Recorded at Mixed Metaphor Studios in Boise, Idaho
Mixed by Kal Pipal
Mastered by Maria Triana
Cover artwork by Tyson Gough
Vinyl layout and design by Jesse Blake Rundle
Jesse Blake Rundle
All performances, drum programming, and arrangements unless otherwise noted
Nate Agenbroad
Live drums on Tracks 1, 2, & 7
Harmonies on Tracks 1, 2, & 7
Bass on Track 2
Jonny Enright
Trombones on Tracks 1, 3, & 8
Yoed Nir
Strings performance on Track 5
Cello & string arrangement on Track 5
Recorded at Yoed Nir's Studios
THANK YOU
Lizzy Ellison and the whole Doe Records songwriting class (Dolan Leckliter, Gretchen Klempa, Antony Abrahams, Derrick Brown, Shannon Netemeyer, Jose Velazco, Rachel Rufrano, Emily Logan, Chelsea Rose. I couldn’t have made this without you all). Most of these songs came together during our class and each one of you inspired me to keep going, to chase new ideas, and to feel confident in my own voice.
Nate Agenbroad, for your friendship and willingness to chase ideas with me and bring all your engineering knowledge to create the sounds I imagine.
The Mond-A-Sides crew (Owen, John, Amber, Nico, Audrey, Emily, and many more) for keeping me sane during the pandemic, and sharing the love of art and music.
Tyson Gough for your friendship and the lovely album art.
Jonny Enright, for your incredible horn arrangements that add so much dimension to these songs
Yoed Nir, for bringing my rudimentary string ideas to life on Yes, I’m Angry, and for the incredibly moving performances.
To the Mixed Metaphor songwriting circle and all the Boise music community (Dale, Nate N, Mike, Dave, Chuck, Brad, Kelsi, Jan, Dusty, Michael, Kristi, Jens, Shaun, and so many more) - I love making music with this community.
Treefort Music Fest, for putting Boise on the map and giving local bands a shot at a big stage.
Lower Gentry Studios for your friendship and collaboration on so many projects - can’t wait to see what’s next.
Mike Harris, Dave Kelly, Amy Fosha, Sumar Alsemeiry, Logan Lynn, Chris Gutierrez, Amos Rothstein, David Burchfield, Paul Mitchell, and so many more.
To everyone who listened to my last record, I thank you, sincerely. I grew so much through putting out that album and learned to find my authentic voice by sharing music with you all.
Such great tunes and lyrics here from a fellow Idahoan. The songs sound familiar but there's always a unique touch that brings them to life. Jesse Blake Rundle
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