I want to write about what is relevant to me, what I can see in our landscape. The music brings this to mind anyway. We live in a rural area of England where the presence of the past is strong. Here, like in many parts of Italy, the past and the present exist side by side. I like my lyrics to drift backwards and forwards through time.
- Simon Jones, And Also The Trees singer and songwriter

Sometime during my first year of college (1988), I found the first And Also The Trees album, Virus Meadow, in a used record bin. I looked over the lyrics sheet and was dazzled by the strange, dreamlike imagery, so I paid a couple bucks for it and gave it a spin. I’ve been a fan ever since.

The song I picked for this week is from the 1998 album Silver Soul (the band has recently released another album, but I haven’t heard it yet). The lyrics of And Also The Trees songs are sometimes sung, and sometimes - like in this week’s song - delivered in a spoken word style. What makes this song for me is the last half, where the tempo quickens, a rhythm guitar is suddenly introduced, and the fragmentary, dreamlike narrative of the lyrics grab your attention:

I take a draught of beer from a clouded glass and look around the room:
Pawschien talking with brothers…
The men have self-made tatooed grids on their forearms
in which there are sanskrit letters.
They tell me all that they know is the obvious,
and that if I stay with them, maybe I will learn it, too.

Suede-head girls with grey eyes and clear skin,
One has a crescent scar on her cheekbone,
She looks at me with an air of smiling anticipation,
as though she’s expecting me to recognise her at any second.
Something turns inside me like a tickling thirst…
Others are watching me, too, same expression,
Then look away, laughing, shaking heads…
It’s okay, you’ll remember.

Back in the dark streets
the scent of the human night seems to hold me,
Steps muted by onion skins.
Old women sleep curled in the roots of houses,
coiled around bales and bundles of fresh herbs and babies.
Walking the wooden tunnels out of town,
All I can think is - remember your way back here -
As in the darkness, all has vanished.
Remember your way back here.

Not many bands can hold my attention year after year. But these guys have because their sound has matured and changed with each album. A fan wrote up a good summary of the phases they’ve gone through:

I think their musical career can be divided in some phases; a first one, soaked with quite typical (but very original at the time) sonorities of the cold-wave post-punk period. Sharp but never aggressive guitars, lots of chorus, delays and reverbs, powerful rhythms…The second phase of their career is a very long trip backwards into the centuries; the look (riding-boots, ruffle-shirts, vests, cut pants, scarves and long coats) and the sound both change. Keats, Byron and Shelley are awakened from their long sleep…The guitars turn into harpsichords…In 1992 Green Is The Sea is released; it is a new phase, a new musical change for the band…Within the album is placed a big piano; its chords are the basis for every song…[The 1996 album] Angelfish, a brand new musical path. Simon tells us: “Justin found this 50’s [American] guitar sound and somehow we then continued in this direction.”…Angelfish takes the listener through a long deserted street across endless open spaces; a big convertible car across the United States, town after town, leaving behind rocky mountains, dry deserts, green flatlands, muddy rivers, chaotic metropolis’ and quiet provincial towns, bars flooded with cheap beer.

Here’s the band’s official site.