Countless Branches expressed with absolute simplicity, but with total depth, which the author wants to tell us with the music and the words. His only ambition is to establish a clear communication and direct to the listener. Instead, the message that the british Bill Fay, a musician of 77 years for almost 40 lived forgotten by the capricious music industry, it is not at all simple. This material, that in the mouth of another would run the risk of falling into kitsch or be a mere artifice, is blessed with a wisdom and a peace inside that elevate the songs to a level of beauty and emotion rare to see.
Artist: Bill Fay
Album: Countless Branches
Label: Dead Oceans / Popstock!
Rating: 8 out of 10
Revered and respected since he returned to recording in 2012 –Marc Almond and Wilco are among those who have been versioned- , Fay has had time and space to macerarse as an author. He continued composing and recording, though no one would remember him, as if somehow it knew that the time would come when the world would end up paying attention to it. That is why, Countless Branches is also an antidote to combat the constant noise that has already been appropriate to who we are and what surrounds us.
The author only takes 10 songs and a concise instrumentations to speak to us. The piano and the voice guide a music that is worth the minimal details. A few strokes of the drums mark the rhythm of Your Little Face, and in Time’s Going Nowhere, cello rubric gently rising emotional theme. Filled With Wonder once Again, made with guitar and vocals, worth only of a picture beautiful, the smiling face of the children under the rain, to draw hope. Everything in this album revolves around themes that should be the cornerstones of any life. Songs humble and sincere, who talk about the futility of time, the redemptive power of love, the nature as the root of eternal. And when in Love Will Remain, the sound of a trumpet stems elegant and solitary, almost like a annunciation, Fay is reminding us that the solution we need is always inside of us. The majority of this type of discs they are sad. This may seem good, but it is not at all. It can’t be coming from a man who sings: “I will Remain among the hills of my youth / I’ll stay here and I will seek the hidden truth”.
