His careful writing has never sounded so exacting or direct. Any aural comfort you might get from its blissful outro is quickly punctuated by the thought that, with Berman away from the mic, you almost want to call in for a welfare check to make sure he’s doing OK. It’s that kind of record.Having spent ten years coming to terms with himself, David Berman has brought us all up to speed with where he’s at.
Although, his blog was also titled Menthol Mountains at times. He was frustrated with the reception to the final Silver Jews album, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, which was released in 2008. Aside from the occasional public sighting, he’s released a book of cartoons, and given no interviews. “That’s Just The Way That I Feel” breaks down the minutiae of “a decade playing chicken with oblivion”, while the two titles which open side two make the two sides of his loss painfully clear: "She’s Making Friends, I’m Turning Stranger" is immediately followed by "I Loved Being My Mother’s Son".Meanwhile, "Nights That Won’t Happen" opens with one of the album’s most devastating lines, delivered with a disarming mix of certainty, terror and envy: “The dead know what they’re doing when they leave this world behind”. An eponymous album was released in July 2019. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Purple Mountains David Berman’s first new music in over a decade is a marvelous collection of heartbreak, grief, and bitterness. Instead, Purple Mountains is a project born of perspective and circumspection, not self-indulgence or score-settling. The message proclaimed that the band he'd fronted for the previous two decades was, in part, a riposte to his Republican lobbyist father. Berman, who long suffered from treatment-resistant depression, said in a podcast interview with Vish Khannain 2019, "There probably were a hundred nights … These timeless sounds mirror the classic tenor of Purple Mountains' songwriting. It may not be the 2019’s easiest listen, but it’s certainly its most honest, and one of the year’s most rewarding. If his previous band was a way of reckoning with the demons of his past, Berman has been candid that the album’s two biggest influences have been the death of his mother and his separation from his wife, and it’s impossible not to hear the album through that prism. "In a way," he announced, "I am the son of a demon come to make good the damage." It’s the proper country record he’s been threatening to make since 2001’s Bright Flight, which he recorded when he actually lived in Nashville. These timeless sounds mirror the classic tenor of Purple Mountains' songwriting. In an interview with The Washington Post in 2019, Berman said, "I saw no one and did nothing." These timeless sounds mirror the classic tenor of His careful writing has never sounded so exacting or direct.Featuring your picks for the best albums and songs of the yearFrom Big Thief’s twin masterworks to Brittany Howard’s bold solo debut, these were the guitar records we loved most this year.The artists who ruled the year, starring FKA twigs, Bon Iver, Kim Gordon, DaBaby, and moreThe tracks that defined the year, starring Billie Eilish, Thom Yorke, Normani, Bad Bunny, and moreThe records that made the decade, starring Kendrick Lamar, Grimes, Bon Iver, Solange, Lana Del Rey, and many moreThe Best Music of 2019: Pitchfork Readers’ Poll ResultsDavid Berman Remains Bummed Out on “All My Happiness Is Gone”The Best Music of 2019: Pitchfork Readers’ Poll Results 9 Berman returned to music in 2018, co-producing Yonatan Gat's critically acclaimed album Universalists. Featuring your picks for the best albums and songs of the yearDavid Berman’s first new music in over a decade is a marvelous collection of heartbreak, grief, and bitterness. Which it kind of is, depending on who you are. Purple Mountains is both a breakup album in the traditional sense and also a breakup album if all of life was one big, long breakup. When Silver Jews disbanded in 2009, David Berman retreated to his house in Nashville, Tennessee and "buried" himself in books.