Artist Iron And Wine

Kim Black

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Iron And Wine

Much like Bonnie “Prince” Billy, singer-songwriter Sam Beam, a.k.a. Iron And Wine, gets cloaked in a lot of backwoods folk-rock mystery. Much of that is because both artists create hushed, cinematic-sounding songs that feel like they’ve grown straight out of the earth. Also, both singers have massive beards. Lumping the two together would be neglectful on many fronts, of course, and deny the almost pop-like feel and increasingly rich production palette of Beam’s latest albums, particularly on this year’s LP, Kiss Each Other Clean. The former film professor’s panoply of bright, jazzy instrumentation sets the scene of the black and white backwoods mystic emerging from the tree line, bathed in sunlight.

Updated 09/26/2011