There is something distinctly literary about everything Will Oldham does, something that always reminds me of a lecture I had at university on William Faulkner. The stately, learned professor read out a passage from Light In August, looked up from his lectern and said in a measured but impassioned tone "I remember reading this as a young man and thinking, this is deep."
Similarly, listening to The Letting Go, Oldham's latest album under the moniker of Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, moves most listeners to grapple with the heaviest intricacies of love, loss and the cosmos. The opening lines of Lay and Love are 'From what I've seen, you're magnificent'. Anyone who can suggest a more atmospheric, enigmatic, ambiguous and mysterious way to begin a song, send us an email and we'll get together and move the world.
The acute sense of desire and desolation that pervades the track is due to the remarkable balance between the voices of Oldham and Dawn McCarthy from the excellent Faun Fables. It is beautiful, but there is a darkness and even witchery to the fusion of their tones that complements the, yes, Faulknerian anguish of the meagre guitar accompaniment. Otherworldly, and slightly unhinged.
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