A Grave With No Name ‘By The Water’s Edge’

I’m thinking of cutting my hair off. Growing up, I had waist length dirty blond hair, from about the age of seven until my first year of university. Like many girls on the cusp of adulthood, I took the plunge and chopped a good ten inches off, leaving the hairdressers with a new found sense of nonchalance. I don’t think I have ever felt so good after a haircut at anytime before or since that day. Later, I experimented with angular bobs, undercuts, a bleach blonde moppish shock on my head – each haircut felt like a natural extension of my slightly androgynous sense of style. For the last year however, I have been growing my hair out; it now sits somewhere in the no man’s land between collar bone and bra strap. It looks…polished. I hate it. I miss having a mass of curls to run my hands through, the downy fluff feel of a shaved head. I’m going to do it, as soon as I can find a hairdresser that will cut my hair for £15 or less…anyway, today I’m listening to ‘By The Water’s Edge‘ from A Grave With The No Name, passion project of songwriter Alex Shields. Taken from sixth album, ‘Passover’, the the new track examines the death of Shields’ grandmother, mining the past with a spellbindingly haunting effect. Juttering percussion and folk guitar provide a solid bedrock for Shield’s fragile and distorted vocal as he takes us on a journey to the places his grandmother used to go. Devastating, yet strangely uplifting, the new album deftly navigates death and its aftermath with grace and sensitivity reminiscent of the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Sparklehorse. Enjoy.