Daniel Martin Moore - Farthest Field '2012

Tracks list

Tracklist

01. First of August
02. The Lengths
03. Cedar & Ash
04. Hollow Heart
05. To Be Lost Again
07. Farthest Field
08. Sweetly By
09. We Two
10. Would You Tell Me Your Dreams

Farthest Field is a duo-project, as we like to say, and Joan calls it, “an
album that lives entirely in a day-dream.” Here‘s the full story of
the album, told by the poet Marianne Worthington. And below, there’s a
bit of the bio & also a video of the first song from the record, recorded live
at the Emery Theatre in Cincinnati, OH:

The lyrics and music of Farthest Field, the new duet project from Daniel Martin
Moore and Joan Shelley, have many of the same traits that mark the best and most
admired ancient Chinese poems: a sense of deep stillness and reverence, a
matching of physical landscapes to inner moods, the dichotomous themes of travel
and homesickness, and, ultimately, lessons in how to be quietly contemplative
yet involved in a place surrounded by “these endless hills” and
water.

This comparison seems fitting considering 2012 marks not only the debut of
Farthest Field from Ol Kentuck Recordings, but also the birth year of
Daniel’s favorite Chinese poet, Tu Fu, born 13 centuries ago this year.

Daniel and Joan have been referring to Farthest Field as “the duo
project” from its inception. “The whole thing was inspired by
‘Trawlerman’s Song’ by Vashti Bunyan and Robert
Lewis,” said Daniel. “Joanie and I worked up a version of it for a
tour we did last summer, and we loved singing it. We got so much positive
feedback from it we started thinking of other songs we might like to do, and
over time, the idea for this record came to be.”

The album was recorded in December, 2011 and February, 2012 in Louisville,
Kentucky. The ten original compositions on Farthest Field display the two
Kentucky-based musicians at their singing-songwriting best. The landscapes of
their words are united with crystalline, nearly fragile, vocals and minimal, but
engaging, accompaniment. This gentle, acoustic music exhibits a mature and calm
transparency that perfectly matches these poetic lyrics about leaving and coming
home.

As the newest release in the Ol Kentuck catalog, Farthest Field is yet another
example of the collaborative spirit between artists. “While we wrote the
songs individually, we worked out the harmonies and arrangements and
instrumentations together,” said Daniel. “And we made it ourselves,
playing everything and recording it ourselves (which was a first for us both).
That was a little intimidating, but it was nice to be limited in that way, too.
There were several covers we were considering, but as we whittled it down, it
was our own compositions that we focused on. A few of the tunes were written
just before the sessions. At least one of them is five years old. Most are some
age in between.”

Joan believed that the duo’s “vocal blend and complimentary
instincts for harmony promised to make an interesting album. We come from very
different song-writing styles,” Joan said, “and the thing that
seemed to emerge was this idea that we could make a voice, one that was mine and
his together. There are only a few lines on this album that aren’t sung
by both of us in harmony.”

Farthest Field, like a revered Chinese poem, is best savored all at once, best
considered as a single musical experience, because the music and stories walk us
through a single day.



DOWNLOAD ALBUM [flac]

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