FIRES WERE SHOT – Awakened by a lonely feud

It has been almost 7 years since Austin-based FIRES WERE SHOT (Clay Walton and John Wilkins) released Solace on the legendary Asphodel label. The somehow dark and atmospheric sonic landscapes explored back then, have now evolved becoming brighter and more ethereal in nature. But in essence, the methods used by the post-rock ambient duo have stayed true to their founding ethos: exploring vast sonic spaces armed with little more than acoustic guitars and a few effect pedals…

Awakened by a lonely feud is their new album released on fellow Texan label Quiet Design, curated by Cory Allen and Mike Vernusky…

Upon listening to the album for the first time, the care that Walton and Wilkins took to structure it towards a narrative of displacement and existential exploration is quite remarkable. The record seems to slowly transport the listener to some alternate yet very personal reality, where the sense of time and space is bent in very unusual ways, not far away from the oneiric realm. Awakened by a lonely feud progresses not in a linear fashion but more by quantum leaps, inducing a strong sense of emotional disjunction – all the pieces being nonetheless linked together to form a unified discourse.

The openers A Tree Tale and Bombell, through a mechanical repetitiveness akin to Terry Riley’s In C or Steve Reich’s Different Trains, are the most hypnotic of the eleven tracks and create a slow transition from the listener environment to new psychological landscapes. Landscapes where the sunny childhood nostalgia of Go On And Carried Away exists alongside the mournful distorted memories of The Wake. FIRES WERE SHOT’s working method often consists of delay-laden layered acoustic guitar loops, sometimes augmented with quiet contrapuntal field recordings or vibraphone-like instruments. A process that conjures up a sense of weightlessness and ethereal flotation, as in We all Become Regretful or Zsarrha. Most tracks are deliberately short and give a glimpse into different mental states that quickly fold into each other. Melodic motifs seem to repeat but upon closer examination they constantly mutate and display incredible tonal depths. Sometimes, like in Feel Like Illinois, textures become much more abrasive and demonstrate Walton and Wilkins’ talent for crafting sonicscapes of astonishing contrasts.

It is only towards the end of this hour-long exploration that time stretches into longer forms, and the narrative becomes less abstract. Case in point being the devastating Destined, telling a story of grief and acceptance through an achingly beautiful guitar loop repeating over plaintive drones and electronic crackles. This Shirt Makes It Rain is the last and longest track on the record, but also the most enigmatic. Reverberated incidentals, short piano samples and quiet processed guitar swells ebb and flow atop field recordings of rain, wind and bird sounds that slowly converge towards a a warm and enveloping silence -a mesmerizing study on inward reflection.

With awakened by a lonely feud, Clay Walton and John Wilkins have created a work of simple and awkward beauty. Being neither post-rock nor ambient, this album creates its own unique and introspective language to explore a fragile and intimate existential realm – a true gem.

- Review by Pascal Savy for Fluid Radio

Available through Quiet Design

www.quietdesign.us
www.fireswereshot.com