“I am not sure which of us it is that's writing this page” - Jorge Luis Borges. There are places where a river runs through the story even when you cannot see it. Austin Cash grew up in the Arkansas Delta, and Nathan Smerage in the Chicago suburbs, their paths crossing years later in Fayetteville, Arkansas, where both became members of the Ozark Free Music Society, a loose congregation of musicians who made free and experimental music in non-traditional venues across the city. ‘River Season’ began as an impulsive text sent to Smerage in the summer of 2024, Cash suggesting they should make an album of guitar duets. Calling his bluff, Smerage returned a folder of recordings within a week. Cash had a handful of pieces of his own, originally written for an unreleased film about an Ozarks ceramicist. The songs began traveling back and forth between them by email, however, after opening for the Magic Tuber String Band and playing the compositions live for the first time together, realised the decision to record them live was the only true option. For four days, in the basement apartment where Cash lived, they recorded 'River Season' live. The result is a meticulously composed collection of steel-string guitar music: part folk record, part road map. Fahey and Ackerman are somewhere in the distance, alongside Bert Jansch, Nick Drake, Marisa Anderson, Nathan Salsburg, Loren Connors, and others. But River Season belongs to neither Arkansas nor Chicago entirely. Cash grew up in Arkansas before moving to Chicago, whereas Smerage grew up in Illinois before moving to Arkansas. 'River Season' catches the two musicians at an intersection in their paths; it belongs to the stretches of road and rivers between them, real and imagined. "This new collaboration between Austin and Nathan is intimate and tonally diverse. Many of the tracks see Austin playing acoustic and Nathan on electric. The statements are succinct (all but two clock in under four minutes) and idiosyncratic. 'Bell Harp' and 'Painting Friend' are two stand out examples for me in which the textures of the electric/acoustic pairing play off each other in a way that I can't say I have encountered before.
TRACK LISTING
1. Ceramic Fish #1
2. Crabapple Catapault
3. Wooden Cow
4. Bathtub Ginny
5. Simon Of The Ditch
6. Frank's Breath
7. Painting Friend
8. Bell Harp
9. Forest Song
10. Motel Song
11. River Season
