Iron & Wine singer-songwriter Sam Beam released a new short concert film, Iron & Wine: Dreamers and Makers are My Favorite People, which features Beam performing material from his release “Archive Series Volume No. 1” at the Jerry Run Summer Theater in Cleveland, West Virginia.
Beam’s “Archive Series Volume No. 1” was released on February 24th, 2015, via his new label Black Cricket Recording Co. The album features 16 unreleased tracks that were digitally transferred from tapes that are from the same period as his 2002 debut album, “The Creek Drank the Cradle”, according to Pitchfork. It was “[r]ecorded in his living room while he worked a day job teaching cinema in Florida, his early Iron & Wine material examined harsh truths about the precarious nature of marriage and family: Every child grows up and leaves home, every friendship is eventually defined by distance and difference, every marriage ends in death and loneliness,” according to Pitchfork’s album review of “Archive Series Volume No. 1”. Check out the tracklisting, below.
In his subsequent releases, Beam appeared to drift away from the intimate nature of his first few albums. This change was not found in the musical arrangements of his later material, but in the lyrical viewpoint that had moved from a reliance on concrete details to one that featured impressionism. Excluding the newly released archival material, since he began recording in 2002, Beam has released “five studio albums, seven EPs and three live albums,” according to mxdwn’s review of his last studio album, “Ghost On Ghost”.
In order to record and release, “Dreamers and Makers are My Favorite People”, Beam teamed up with Picture Show, a video and production group. And, in addition to the performance, the 30-minute film explores the history of the Jerry Run Summer Theater. Check out the film, courtesy of Iron & Wine’s Youtube channel, below. And, if you like what you’ve seen and wish to purchase a digital download of the film, which also features a bonus download of the entire 22-song Jerry Run set, click here.
Iron & Wine, Archive Series Volume No. 1:
01 Slow Black River
02 The Wind Is Low
03 Eden
04 Two Hungry Blackbirds
05 Freckled Girl
06 Judgement
07 Sing Song Bird
08 Beyond the Fence
09 Quarters in a Pocket
10 Loretta
11 Everyone’s Summer of ’95
12 Minor Piano Keys
13 Your Sly Smile
14 Halfway to Richmond
15 Wade Across the Water
16 Postcard