Floating Action’s Still Life Could Be Yours, Too
Ahead of Floating Action’s Hand Carved Garden Tool, I’ve been sitting with the singles written and recorded by Black Mountain musician Seth Kauffman. There are vases of flowers printed on the covers, and among first things, I notice the zinnias on my mantle are exploding too.
The second thing is how good Kauffman makes these songs feel. They’re expansive and up close, atmospheric and at home. It’s the way a synth in the background of “I Can’t Say No” turns into a tornado siren. At the same time, he captures the creaks in the floor and his own fingers moving across guitar strings. Such expansive intimacy is a rare wonder.
On “Stillness Strikes Me,” Kauffman asks, “Why can’t I focus?” This unexpected track, where jangled guitars drive hard against a pulsing rhythm section, expresses an easy-to-join sentiment. The never-ending movement of images or sounds or news makes it hard to attend. In answer, Kauffman praises the finite things, flowers perhaps or a poem, for the way they unfold generatively, over time, forever even. It’s a matter of attention. And these songs are meditations with groove and guitar solos.
Sparse lyrics and a bent toward the refrain make this song one of those finite objects Kauffman sings about. With background vocals rising around the mix, Kauffman returns to two statements regularly. First, “Stillness strikes me. O stillness strikes me.” And second, “The angle of my vision has changed.” That these arrive at a not-completely-predictable cadence suggests they aren’t artifacts of conviction so much as artifacts of willing. And these singles record this longing and these discoveries.
Seth Kauffman aka Floating Action (photo courtesy of the artist)
Kauffman is a collaborative spirit. He plays live and in the studio with folks from Jim James and Dan Auerbach to Michael Naul and Lana Del Ray. But with Floating Action, Kauffman approaches recording as a method of composition. Layering songs track-by-track, historically alone, he realizes music as a technology of communion. His records go beyond capturing and broadcasting performances. In these songs, Kauffman has created objects that usher listeners into the same movements of body and mind.
If only for three minutes and fourteen seconds before the needle lifts or the ad comes on or whatever it is that happens next. For a short time, it’s something to focus on. And that is a gift.
On August 29, you can discover the fullness of this unfolding vision, when Hand Carved Garden Tool is released in entirety. Until then, check out more of Floating Action’s records.
By William Scruggs
William writes in Birmingham, Alabama, about words, and how people use them, and how these things make place.
