An abiding love of musical masterpieces like The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, Love’s Forever Changes and The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society set the stage for the latest release from The Autumn Defense, Here and Nowhere. The influences of John Stirratt and Pat Sansone are as widely varied as the sounds emanating from their latest long player, a collection that charms and enchants by showcasing the band celebrating the golden age of radio without ever being stuck in the past.
From Laurel Canyon to Liverpool, the album celebrates sounds and circumstances that often seem to be fading from view. As Sansone recalls, “There’s an eerie quality to the music I remember from childhood radio—songs that seemed simple until you really listened.” There’s a magic to this music that comes through right from the start. From the flute solo that intertwines with the guitar line in the last minute and half of ‘The One’, it becomes obvious that the band (which includes the rhythm section of James Haggerty and Wieczorek) has an agenda to create classics for a new generation. Contradictions abound as the lyrics play out, “Will you show me/ How to be/ Here and nowhere/ Like a hidden sea?”
There’s a Beatlesque majesty to ‘Winter Shore’ as bass and piano form a bond strings and horns take to another level. The music rises and falls leaving one to wonder at the majesty of it all. ‘Hearts Arrive’ enters with Byrdsian acoustic guitars before layering in descending electric textures and ecstatic vocals. The warmth of their musical beds seem to provide a sense of shelter from the season shifts that are coming.
Substance and sadness are joined with a warmth of tone ushering listeners into a landscape that bursts forth with shade and subtlety, like the staccato piano of ”In The Beginning’ suddenly splits forth on a wave of strings in the chorus building a back-and-forth wave of wonder. The piano balladry of ‘Old Hearts’ builds with the influx of French horn and flugelhorn creating swells of wonder. There is magic in the ability of The Autumn Defense to find ways to create music that bursts forth with a sense of beauty that shines even in their moments of weakness and confusion.
Even in the final moments of ‘Every Flowing Light’, while the guitars chime and the strings swell there is beauty that mixes with the sadness. “I got a feeling that surrounds me/ And I have your spirit all around me/ If it’s the end of the line/ I’d be there anytime/ And your ever flowing light.”
Music transforms moments and Stirratt and Sansone seemingly have discovered the key, finding the sounds and surfaces that bring these songs to life with sadness and joy that exist simultaneously. Here and Nowhere confirms, if there was every any doubt, The Autumn Defense are a band providing layers of greatness measure after measure.