Things are changing for Iron and Wine, both for the band and its namesake. Sam Beam took his band name from a health tonic he saw while filming a movie in Florida. Beef, Iron and Wine was a century-old, foul-tasting, extremely effective anemia cure (four-and-a-half stars, says amazon.com). The J.R. Watkins company—one of the last remaining distributors of Beef, Iron and Wine—discontinued their version in December 2012. With more than a little irony Beam released his most energized album to date just a few months later. Four stars says amazon.com, but it has Beam’s back catalog to compete with.
After two albums, four EPs and an M&M’s commercial worth of bucolic strumming, Beam has spent his latter career fleeing the pastoral loneliness that broke him into the mainstream. He’s channeled Bob Dylan and African beats, and teamed with Calexico for a Southwestern-flavored one off. But, even for someone dedicated to expanding his musical pallet, last year’s Ghost on Ghost was something new. It was Iron and Wine’s album most deeply rooted in arrangements, able to take on fuller-sounding genres like girl groups and jazz. Where Beam’s past work felt isolated, frail and nervous, Ghost on Ghost is bold and free.
“I never thought of what I was doing as the only thing I was able to do,” said Beam. “When you make a record you have a choice. Usually I’ll try something new—even if doing arrangements can be daunting—especially as someone who can’t read music.”
It’s less daunting when you can bring in a top-tier ringer. Beam worked in broad strokes for Ghost on Ghost, sending mock-ups of the songs he wrote to multi-instrumentalist and longtime Iron and Wine adjunct Rob Burger. Burger was a founding member of San Francisco’s Tin Hat chamber music group, a cradle of great collaborators, including Ara Anderson (a favorite collaborator with Tom Waits) and Mark Orton (composer of the Nebraska soundtrack, on which Burger performed).
On “Baby Center Stage,” a lap-steel country slow dance, Burger backed Beam’s vocal harmonies with a seamless flow of string parts. The seamless arrangements make it easy to miss the surprising amount of moving parts in the song. It’s the work that surprised Beam the most. Blink and you might miss it. Miss it and Burger proves his worth.
“You surround yourself with people you trust,” said Beam.
But if Ghost on Ghost is the first Iron and Wine album that would truly warrant a bus-sized touring band, it is also the first where Beam’s modus operandi of performing solo seems like an active decision. His past music has been thin enough to imagine as one guy with a guitar; 2002’s The Creek Drank the Cradle actually was just one guy with a guitar. Ghost on Ghost brings pianos and organs, even a Jew’s harp into the equation. The music may be getting more complex, but Beam insists his work is not.
“When I write them, the songs all start similarly—me with a guitar,” he said. “They always can get back to that. And solo-style shows feel more off the cuff. I can take requests. I could cater to the new songs but I also like the old songs.”
Though it seems like a complete reinvention in a series of reinventions, Ghost on Ghost is just as much an ornately embellished continuation of those first, sparse albums. Depending on which ones you speak to, fans will boast the former just as often as the latter. The truth is that the well never ran dry for Iron and Wine’s early, strummed creative output. Just because Beam’s apparent changes came before the public clamored for them doesn’t mean they’d never be necessary. Even Watkins’ Beef, Iron and Wine faced a point when the same old formula ceased to excite.
Iron and Wine plays the Pabst Theater at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 18 with opener Jesca Hoop.
