ALBUMS // S. Carey – Hundred Acres

Post by Misha

S. Carey’s new album is the scene in the movie where the protagonist gets in the car and just starts driving.

It’s what I imagine every day when I fantasize about missing my exit and turning off my phone and never writing another email in my life.

Driving forever, if running out of gas weren’t a thing. I’d go up the 101 without getting stuck in traffic 15 minutes into my great escape. I’d camp in the forest when I got tired and I’d never run out of money.

Hundred Acres is healing in an otherworldly way. It captures the intoxicating fantasy of getting lost, carrying it sweetly on the wind in softly plucked strings. But underneath, a violin speaks something melancholy and true: it was always only ever a dream.

And much like the early records of S. Carey’s other project, Bon Iver, the magic of this album lies somewhere between great comfort and great loss. It is beautiful because of the sun-dappled scene it paints, and it is also beautiful because of the places where it lets the canvas show through the brush strokes, unromantic and white; a gentle reminder that no one can live in a picture.

And it’s beautiful for those generous moments when it closes its eyes and opens its arms and whispers (just because we needed to hear it) the stubbornly hopeful conviction that despair is only geographical: All we need is a hundred acres, and some room to breathe.

Hundred Acres is out now on Jagjaguwar. Buy it here. Tour dates here.