Music Review: Iron & Wine, Archive Series Volume No. 1

By Melissa Bratcher

Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam does what he does exquisitely well. For over a decade, Beam has been creating hushed, intimate acoustic songs of love and domesticity and family, sepia-tinted nostalgia for right now.

The songs that make up Iron & Wine’s new Archive Series Volume No. 1 are pulled from tapes that Beam made before he was Iron & Wine, prior to the release of 2002’s The Creek Drank The Cradle. These songs were made only to be heard by his family and make up what feels like a diary of sorts, accompanied by his acoustic guitar. They are songs full of striking imagery, like in “The Wind Is Low,” a paean to a family of three “including the little one”: “We sail in the smallest boat/sleep just when the wind is low.”

These slice-of-life songs are full of romantic words and surprising turns of phrase, all sung in Beam’s near-whisper. They inhabit a quiet, early morning intimacy, the quietude of pre-dawn. These songs feel like you’re catching a glimpse of something very private.

Archive Series Volume No. 1 consists of 16 tracks, pulled out of shoeboxes, from inside closets, some widely bootlegged. They’re occasionally a bit rough, like “Eden,” which takes a familiar story told over a quietly steady beat, adds some captivating acoustic guitar flourishes, and then ends quite abruptly. The tracks are raw and honest; there’s no studio trickery here. Some tracks do sound a bit better sonically, like the warmer sounding “Freckled Girl.” The recording is simply better, the guitar crisper, the vocals less mushy.

The guitar line of “Judgement” is insistent, but in a very polite manner. The harmonies are enchanting and it is about as uptempo as Beam gets. He’s quite a fine guitarist, throwing in bits of slide guitar on “Beyond The Fence.” It’s, again, a breathtaking, closely observed song about the passage of time. I think one of the most remarkable things about Beam’s output is how he can take a perfectly mundane moment of human existence and turn it into a beautiful song.

Archive Series Volume No. 1 as a whole is a wonderfully tender, deeply interior collection of gorgeously written and performed songs. It’s not surprising after listening to Iron & Wine’s later output to hear that Beam’s persona and style sprung, apparently, fully realized from his soul. There’s an honesty and integrity to his music that just can’t be faked.

Archive Series Volume No. 1 was released by Black Cricket Recording Co. on February 24.