116: Forest Bathing, by A Hawk and a Hacksaw

A Hawk and a Hacksaw (USA)
Forest Bathing (2018)
10 tracks, 34 minutes
Bandcamp • Spotify • iTunes

This album is one of those ones that caught my attention just by being something that I didn’t expect at all. I came across this album when I was randomly asked to make a short write-up about them last year. I had heard of A Hawk and a Hacksaw before, as they’d been around for quite a while (they released their first album back in 2002). I’d never actually heard their music though, and for some reason I’m not entirely clear on, I figured they were some sort of ethereal indie-Americana-folky sort of outfit. That’s not what you get on Forest Bathing.

What you do get is a relaxed and refined set that takes heavy influence from Hungarian and Bulgarian Romani music, Balkan brass, klezmer and even Arabic pop and classical styles. It is quite ethereal though, so I was right on that; it works well with that theme of ‘forest bathing,’ a way of relaxing and enjoying nature by connecting with the forest. It is interesting that the instruments that are used are sometimes those with quite harsh or bold tones – such as a cimbalom, a brass ensemble, some very Omar Souleyman-like synthesisers and a really odd sound that I think is produced by dragging a single horse hair across a fiddle string, giving a scratchy, hollow sound – but the context in which the duo use them render them as gentle as anything.

The thing that solidifies this album’s inclusion on this list for me is that it includes a melody that gets stuck in my head out of nowhere all the time. It gets stuck for ages, as well, and I always forget where I know it from. It’s not even an unpleasant experience; it’s a really beautiful melody. Then I realise it’s from this album and get to enjoy it all over again. If you want to inflict this condition upon yourself, it’s the melody from the fourth track, ‘The Shepherd Dogs are Calling’.

I love coming across something unexpected. I don’t even know the rest of the band’s discography, so for all I know, their other stuff may well be that ethereal indie-Americana-folky stuff that I thought at first, although I doubt it. Either way, it’s always fun to be taken on a musical adventure that you were just completely unprepared for, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw did that for me in the form of Forest Bathing. Come to think of it, maybe I’ve prepared you too well, just by writing this. Sorry about that. Listen to it anyway.