“What’s that little snapping sound off and down the hall? It’s someone snapping gems off the cavern wall.”

Windier is a bell that rings early in the morning. The bell stands on its side,
somewhere near the coasts of Maine, and several people live inside. They crawl in and out to get to their shows on time. They work in the weather, tying and untying knots with only a slight toil. Windier, of course, is a band. Their latest album Doesn’t the Baby captures songwriter Asa Shadis as he writes of the world and its warm ashes, remembering and trying to remember how to stay present for the things we’re not ready for. “When things get real,” he sings on another track, “doesn’t the baby arrive?”

“Gems” is the final track on Doesn’t the Baby. Asa sings with Zoe Holland, whose drumming on other tracks is at least one of Windier’s crucial heartbeats. A third voice belonging to Kenzie Reilly also appears on occasion, completing a brief and elegant trio. They all mirror each other with a delicate attunement, wondering as clearly as one can about a planet so blurry it obstructs your vision. How long have we lived here? What are we holding onto? Where do we put it down? And who is taking the gems from the cavern? They may not be asking these questions outright, but their search is felt. Though “Gems” doesn’t talk about “the baby,” we do hear Asa, Zoe, and Kenzie reflect on the long-awaited collapse of the thing they held up high. It is a pregnant moment, the one that happens right before things change.

“Until the thing we held up high was collapsing finally / so out into the street, planet blurring / I saw real life in the morning / a whispered little warning.”

Throughout the recording, a cello (played by Annie Dodson) flows beneath the poetry. Sometimes it creeps up to dance with Asa’s rich acoustic guitar,
expanding the song’s center with a dusty decadence. The environment of the
song seems to stretch out horizontally and vertically, as if they are all huddled together, performing inside of a tall, endless cave. Perhaps thanks to Mike Bullister’s mixing and mastering. But it’s also not hard to imagine them playing this song next to a stalactite or two. Once, they actually sort of did:

“Gems” is minimalist songwriting at its best. Like an enchantment, it doesn’t
reveal too much. You may want to sit yourself somewhere dark and find yourself a flashlight before listening. Maybe you will find one of those missing gems.

You can learn more about the band at windier.net. Or you can find the nearest bell that looks shorn by the sea and peer inside.

Written by Clara Zornado