Blush Music

Album review

Largely made up of de-/re-constructed songs from the self-titled Woven Hand album, David Eugene Edwards creates a whole new (though similarly sinister) experience with Blush Music. Commissioned by the Belgian avant dance company Ultima Vez, Blush Music stretches out the previously released songs, adding interludes of incidental music and found-sound collages. The result is something similar to a film score that is best listened to all the way through in a single sitting. Edwards' cover of Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine" gets a reprise. This time menacing bird caws, distant voices, what sounds like a crackling fire, and a raga-like banjo make for a deeply affecting 14-minute mini-epic of psychedelic gospel-folk. The ultimate track, "Story and Pictures" (which also appeared on the first Woven Hand disc in different form), is maybe the best piece of music Edwards has ever recorded. Heartbreaking yet strangely uplifting, the song uses a simple piano figure, an acoustic guitar strum, and Edwards' haunted (or haunting) vocals to communicate a dark, almost mystical beauty.
© Jason Nickey /TiVo