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Sandro Perri, "Tiny Mirrors"
Throughout the history of life, humans are faced with the mortality of our parents, it's simply natural that we outlive our parents if everything goes normally. However, I can't think of anybody who is or was quite ready to deal with the life altering effects that extreme illness (an aggressive "terminal" cancer) has on everybody close. After weeks of dealing on a daily basis with medical uncertainty, insane drug side effects, mental instability, and a "care" system which ejects patients prematurely from necessary hospitalization, I finally had a window of opportunity for a break, and Tiny Mirrors will live forever in my memory for the soundtrack for that weekend.
A friend of mine was working and living in New Hampshire for the summer and kept trying to get me up. I couldn't make it there until August but the day before I departed, Sandro Perri's second non-Polmo Polpo release arrived in the mail. It didn't land in the CD player until I had actually arrived in the beautiful little tourist town of North Conway, usually overpopulated during ski season but comfortably busy during the summer. Over the course of the weekend my friend and I were like two kids free from parents and without a worry in the world: we swam in a river, a lake, and a waterfall, bicycled around, drove up a steep mountain, took numerous photos, and drank. Tiny Mirrors didn't leave the player.
The gently moving whimsical melodies are perfect for a getaway weekend where the music and mood are all completely carefree. Driving through a comfortably congested town at 5 miles per hour with the windows all the way down in the warm summer air as fat tourists walk slowly the streets was a far more amazing experience than I could have ever dreamt. Every song on Tiny Mirrors sounds un-electronic and un-amplified, like a room of friends enjoying their time playing together (operant word: play - this music doesn't sound like work to the musicians, but it sounds like fun). It's quite a departure from the first Polmo Polpo recordings but hardly unexpected from Perri's last release, the fantastic Sandro Perri Plays Polmo Polpo EP. The drums are quiet and subtle, shuffling with gently brushed cymbals and a lighlty tapped tympani or kick; a faint bass provides more rhythmic backbone while guitars are a combination of acoustic strumming, nylon string picking, and Hawaiian-like pedal-steel sounds. Occasionally other non-electronic instruments make their appearance, like a flute melody on "The Mime" or brass instruments like the euphonium and trombone on the catchy "White Flag Blues" or the '70s-sounding "Love Is Real," respectively, but they're never overpowering. Perri isn't afraid to sing and let the vocals lead the songs. It's unique as this is what I feel is one of the most tragic down sides to non-top-40 pop music: the burial of the voice.
It's almost eerie, too, for me personally, that the subject matter of Perri's lyrics move from familial reflection in "Famiy Tree" to the summery lazy longings on "City of Museums," where Perri sings "As I pay to dream an empty beach where my spirit combs the sand, Where I am a bum." It's September now but the mere sound of the first notes of the first song bring me back to a simple weekend that I will never forget. I have Sandro Perri to thank for that. I can't promise this album will be as important in anybody else's life but for mine, it will always be close to my heart.
For the record, my mom's doing much better right now both physically and mentally and all who got to see her at the last Brainwaves know she's always been supportive in my music endeavors. Expect to see her next year at the fest again in the balconies.
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