Shore: Fleet Foxes’ Meditation and Respite on the World in 2020
An equinox is a biannual event when the celestial and ecliptic equators overlap, causing the entirety of Earth to experience the same amount of daylight and darkness for 24 hours. Shore, Fleet Foxes’ triumphant and stunning fourth album, was released with 48 hours notice on September 22, 2020 at 13:31 UST (Universal Coordinated Time), aligning exactly with the Autumnal Equinox. It’s only appropriate that Robin Pecknold, the sole songwriter and studio producer of Fleet Foxes, rushed the release of this album (5 months ahead of its scheduled physical release) in order to present it to the world at this specific moment in time. A moment when the United States is experiencing wildfires and hurricanes at an unprecedented level, when we’re seeing widespread protests calling for racial justice in what is now the largest civil rights movement in the nation’s history, and when the world is dealing with a catastrophic pandemic which has ended the lives of almost 1 million people.
Pecknold says in his Artist Statement that Shore is an album about celebrating life in the face of death. That it’s about honoring those who have passed, and choosing to live fully and vibrantly in a way they no longer can. That it’s an album that exists outside of time, allowing the listener to access something personal or spiritual that is untouchable by whatever the state of the world may be at a given moment, whatever the season. Shore is a deeply felt meditation on the dualities and paradoxes of existence in the current state of the world, and it makes perfect sense as to why Pecknold released it on the Autumnal Equinox. It’s the exact moment that all the world exists between summer and fall, between past and future, between life and death, outside of time for just a moment.
Shore opens with “Wading In Waist-High Water,” and the lyrics introduce the themes of duality in life and death: Summer has ended, and for a moment we stand in a liminal state of morning (mourning), staring into the fire. And beyond our agency, we fall into alignment with the universe to experience a personal and collective reflection of existence.
“Summer all over
Blame it on timing
Weakening August water
Loose-eyed in morning
Sunlight covered over
Wading in sight of fire
And we’re finally aligning
More than maybe I can choose”
The production heard on “Wading In Waist-High Water” also introduces a duality in its sound. The simple reverberating strums of the acoustic guitar that open the track are classic Pecknold, but after a few bars we hear entirely new sounds: Uwade Akhere’s vocals and The Westerlies’ horn arrangements. For the first time in Fleet Foxes’ history, Pecknold has taken a step back and is putting other collaborators at the forefront of the music. Throughout the album are performances by Christopher Bear, Meara O’ Reilly, Hamilton Leithauser & Family, and many others, and all of these collaborations create a fresh and communal sound that Fleet Foxes has never embodied before. The collaborative nature of the album pushes the themes of collective unity and celebration, facing the oncoming death with a new sense of strength and purpose.
“Wading In Waist-High Water” transitions into Shore’s 2nd track, “Sunblind.” Here, maximalist production kicks in when Pecknold’s voice enters. He sings of artists dead and gone too young: Richard Swift from alcohol addiction, Bill Withers from heart complications, John Prine from COVID-19. He acknowledges their musical legacies by referencing their names and albums, echoing sentiments for the deaths of so many throughout this year. And further, Pecknold chooses to extend these artists’ legacies by celebrating their lives and work.
“I’m gonna swim for a week in
Warm American Water with dear friends
Swimming high on a lea in an Eden
Running all of the leads you’ve been leaving”
If one knows the reference, this chorus becomes a thematic totem for the album. American Water is an album from 1998 by the foundational indie rock band Silver Jews, fronted by David Berman. Pecknold sings too of Berman in the first verse of “Sunblind,” adding him to the legacy of artists who died too soon. This chorus layers two of the album’s themes and creates Shore’s core thesis: Pecknold is not only choosing to bask in the life and love that exists in the present moment, but he is also taking the awareness and legacy of death forward with him into his future.
Musically, “Sunblind” continues the sonic duality. The feathery melodies and bright vocals recall the early innocence of their self-titled album, and yet there’s a newly-constructed wall of sound that is putting grooving bass and piano lines amongst the guitars. The harmonies are subtle, and the intricate layers of production are stacked in a cohesive blend. The lush arrangements are like the final fleeting moments of summer before the dawn breaks into the decaying fall. It’s as if the album is squeezing out every last drop of life to fuel us through the long winter.
It’s a sound of maturation, as if Pecknold no longer needs to prove himself with the high-art hymns of Fleet Foxes or the experimental forms of Crack-Up. His music has shed any remaining skin of insecurity and pretentiousness, and it’s simply existing without the need to be spectacular. And in doing so, Pecknold achieves the spectacular that he has always strived for. Shore is the most free Fleet Foxes has ever sounded, and the album strings together some of the strongest music Pecknold has made so far.
Pecknold is sharing his new perspective of existence on Shore. Certainly his Crack-Up journey informed a lot of his soul-searching, but what emerges on Shore is an immediate reflection of what life means to him in the wake of all that has happened this year. In a way this album acts like a spiritual ritual, singing the songs of the dead and dancing the spirits to another plane. He’s celebrating what we have and what we have lost, and taking that energy forward in order to combat the looming death above us all.
On “Maestranza” he sings “Now that a light is on / No time to get it wrong.” All that we have inherited is on the path for destruction, he imparts, and there is a need to overcome the omens and bathe in life in order to have the energy to embetter this world for our future. There is no longer time to have debates regarding climate change, nor can we continue to allow systemic police brutality to exist when Black lives are at stake. Pecknold sees that what the world is now is all that we have left, and to give it up in surrender is a waste of inheritance.
“Are you now insisting
Is it not worth it?
But I’ve got no option
I inherited this and I’m overcome”
Shore is not art that is meant to soothe or distract from what is going on in the world. Rather, it uses respite as a meditative and spiritual tool in order to assess the dire global issues that we are facing. Pecknold has long stared towards the future and been burdened by the past, but it seems that with Shore he is finally embracing the present moment, the infinite liminality of existence. And so on this Autumnal Equinox, we’ve been given a record of reflection, meditation, breath, and life. A record that captures this specific moment, and may we use it to celebrate the life we are living right now before passing into the unknown after the sun rises once again. After a decade of soul-searching and six months of existential meditation, Pecknold has clearly found some meaning through respite. Maybe if we stop for 55 minutes and listen, we can find some answers too.
Mark Metzger is a New York-based musician, theatre artist, and cinephile. Check out his work at mark-metzger.com