“Birch Tree,” by Tomo Nakayama, is a slow, gorgeous knife, a knife that teases the skin on your belly, just above your navel, not enough to draw blood but enough to leave a little white mark so you know it has been there. It’s a musical phrase that runs its sorrowful, melancholy pace up and down your front steps over and over, its fist reaches out to knock on your door, only to fall back limp again and again. And you want to know what’s really messed up? You’re inside waiting for that god damn knock. You want to let it in. You want to feed it and bathe it and sleep with it and love it forever but it will never ever knock, never.
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It’s amusing to me how well this song sits with a 17 minute long video of RL Burnside playing a meditative blues riff at an early 70s honky think in Mississippi that I just finished watching. I love this song and the groove it finds. Another great contribution to the world from Tomo.