Jamie Barnes' 'Ex Voto"
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Louisville’s Jamie Barnes. And since musicians are people, it is only natural for us to wonder what’s he’s been up to in the years since his last release. Well, since musicians are people, we don’t necessarily get to know what Barnes has been doing for the last few years and we honor that privacy. But since he is a poet and songwriter, we do get to peek in on Barnes as he opens a window into his soul on his latest release “Ex Voto.” And the good news is that, even though we may not have heard from him in a while, Barnes’ clever and intimate songwriting sensibilities have only sharpened.
Barnes plays quiet folk-ish music that is pregnant with imagery and warm details. But this is quiet music to be played loud. Barnes has always been known for his lush instrumentation, even though he often records at home. There are new layers, intricacies, and flourishes discovered with each listen and only discovered when we allow ourselves to be in the moment and fully present with this music. Which I think is part of its message.
Barnes gives away few personal details, but as the title suggests, there is a sense of someone struggling to find gratitude and devotion in the wake of something serious; in the wake of life, love, and loss. Sometimes relationships feel like planets trying to find their orbit or two songbirds on opposite branches.
Weaving imagery that oscillates between the here and now; being grounded in nature along with with scenes from the stars (“Perseid and Leonid fall,” “Mercury's in retrograde,” “Binary star,” etc.) Barnes holds a liminal space for the listener. It exists in the moment between inhale and exhale. Maybe it’s a Fall record caught in the moment between expected freeze, remembered warm breezes and the reality of nature’s passing everywhere around us. Does it bring us comfort to know that we’re not alone in our cycle of death and rebirth? Or does it reinforce our hurt, leaving us hopelessly caught in a never-ending cycle? That’s for the listener to decide. But throughout, Barnes evokes that sense of pain, loss, and longing. The opening words set the stage:
Turn the Earth upside down
Shake the dead things from their holes
While the memories drape
Like white chemtrails in our souls
Barnes explores the tension between endings and beginnings, trying to make sense of them both. In “Low To The Bird” (previously released as a single), Barnes laments, leaving us to wonder if his broken relationship is with a lover, himself, or maybe even his God (or maybe all three?):
Now I'm too many words lost down the drain
Gather me like rivers, gather me like rain
I don't mean to accuse, I don't mean to complain
I'm too low to the bird for my prayer to be heard anyway
Maybe we should expect nothing less from a man whose Twitter bio reads “Per aspera ad astra” (“through hardships to the stars") but this interplay between the imminent and the transcendent; that in-between space where life occurs provides the perfect canvas for Barnes’ clever and often insightful words. But the music is just as vital as the words. They weave in and out of one another; melodies softly soar and swirl, uplifting the soul even while the words might keep us grounded. Exploring that “in-between” space, “Ex Voto” is a record that doesn’t shy away from the hurt of life, but it is also not a record which leaves us in the mire.
Though Barnes acknowledges and explores despair and hurt and the dark realities of life, love, and loss, there is never a sense of despair or defeat. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Consider these lines from album opener “Pennyrile”
“And its shadow found me
There beneath it all
And with lifted hands to high we gasped and wondered at the writing on the sky
What a thing it even is to be alive”
Despite it all, “what a thing it even is to be alive!” Even though “crooks and carnivores are closing,” “Ex Voto” finds Barnes “holding fast, holding fast” (“Hollow Dusk”). The mountains may be crashing in to the sea, but Barnes is struggling to be still and make sense of it all; all without giving up the still small light of hope in the darkness. It’s that quiet sense of hope that seems to not only keep Barnes afloat but able to still try and make sense of it all. In “Christ of the Ozarks,” he sings:
“Christ of the Ozarks, hold out your kind arms to me
I lost my landmarks,
I lost my family
Bring down your home
Hold me in mystery
Hold me till the end and then always”
Sometimes we just wish we could make sense of things. There are days when we need to be held and assured and that’s part of what it means to be human. “Hold me till the end and then always.” Even now in the in-between. The night may be dark, but Barnes will not let us give up searching for the meaning behind it all:
“I wish there was a liturgy for the hour soon forgotten
I wish there was a prayer for the when and they why
I wish there was a litany for the names evanescent
A benediction for the long goodbye”
I don’t know if “Ex Voto” is Barnes’ “long goodbye” to something or someone, but it’s an album that deserves our full attention. It is a timely record for a culture caught in societal grief. Hopefully it will help us make sense of suffering while not giving in to despair. We may be broken, but only “just enough” that it’s like blood-letting; for our good. We may each have a vision of what we need to be purged of, but Barnes reminds us that even if the “great cloud of witnesses dissolves overhead,” we are not alone. Wherever you find that “Silent Partner,” Barnes reminds us that there are other hands reaching out in the dark. There are other people caught in the in-between just like we are.
Barnes may not chart a clear path back to daylight and out of the suffering, but he will “hold the space” for us as we “sundown” and in that, he has reminded us of the beauty of life, and love, even when there’s loss. Winter might be coming but, we can still “harmonize our sorrows and sighs and brace for the winter gloom.”
“Hear them now, crooks and carnivores are closing
Bar the door and guard my ruby heart 'til morning
Catalog what's left and wake the weary dawn
Holding fast, holding fast.”