Dear Companion is a beautiful collaborative effect between three Kentucky-natives: Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore, who wrote and preformed the songs; and Jim James of My Morning Jacket, who produced the album. The central idea behind Dear Companion is to express the members' love for nature—in particular the Appalachian Mountains—and to protest/raise awareness of the issue of mountaintop removal coal mining (please go to iLoveMountains.org for more info.) I thought pretty highly of the album from the beginning, but reading that the basis of it is about saving mountains, my love for the album skyrocketed! Like I said at the start, the collaboration between Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore is remarkably gorgeous and moving. The out of this world harmonies and memorizing acoustic guitar, cello, and banjo in songs like "Something, Somewhere, Sometime", "My Wealth Comes To Me", "Flyrock Blues", "Try", and "Sweet Marie" completely melt my heart. The mostly serious tone of Dear Companion is cleverly broken up by the lighthearted and one of my favourite tracks, "Only A Song". Lyrics like: "I want to believe that this mountain can’t be moved; But this is only a song, it can’t change the world" and later, "I pictured the Harlem Globetrotters dancing like mosquitoes with a basketball" make me smile.Hey, it is Earth Day today! So why not celebrate this day by supporting an environmentally conscious album—go buy Dear Companion over at Sub Pop or iLoveMountains.org, all the proceeds from the album goes to iLoveMountains.org!
Something, Somewhere, Sometime [wicked-cool song]
stream Dear Companion here
visit Ben Sollee's MySpace here and Daniel Martin Moore's MySpace here
buy Dear Companion over at Sub Pop Records or iLoveMountains.org
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