Oweihops' fanciful name sums up band's allure
By Ken Maiuri
About five years ago, singer/songwriter Michael Metivier had a dream in which he read the mysterious non-word "Oweihops."
"I decided it meant "chickadees' because it sounded like one of
their calls," Metivier explained. "Chickadees are my favorite birds,
and also the state bird of Massachusetts. After that dream I knew I'd
never find another band name I could so completely own, so now I'm
stuck with it."
That origin story sums up a lot of Oweihops' allure. The Turners
Falls-based trio creates sparse, acoustic-based music that's both
earthy and dreamy. Warm acoustic guitars are visited by a haunting
cello, and Metivier is drawn to unusual words and images, like
passerines (perching birds), the game of mumblety-peg and the Quabbin's
lost towns.
Oweihops just completed its strong new CD, "Viburnum," and will
celebrate with a release show at the Rendezvous in Turners Falls on
Friday at 8:30 p.m.
The album's ten rural songs aren't far from the musical territory of
Low, Iron & Wine and Songs: Ohia, and Metivier's clear voice is
related to singers like Jason Molina, Richard Buckner and Mark Kozelek.
But the songwriter uniquely describes his band's music as "non-linear
colonial folk music for birdwatchers," and counts among his
inspirations experimental Italian author Italo Calvino, beer and
western Massachusetts.
"I've always been a bit obsessed with creating a mythic
Massachusetts or mythic New England through music," Metivier said, and
with the help of Aric Bieganek on drums and harmonies and Rebekah
Dutkiewicz on cello, Oweihops' songs are both intimate and expansive.
"Let's get a dog and we'll walk the woods / the old brick scars of
these neighborhoods / before the ice chokes the river good / I think we
can but I know we could," sings Metivier over loping heartbeat drums
and dusky cello on the song "As Much Home As We Have."
Metivier played a solo acoustic show last weekend alongside three
other solo songwriters, and even in an already attentive and quiet
atmosphere, the Oweihops frontman seemed to slow down the very
molecules in the room, keeping his songs measured and stark.
"A friend described them to me just today as being 'reflective'
rather than happy or sad, and I think that's right," Metivier said. "I
always hope that Oweihops songs suggest their moods rather than dictate
them, and that they allow enough space for listeners' imaginations to
fill in blanks and create associations."
Whatever the new album's opening song "Proximity" is about, its
final lines create an apocalyptically wistful picture. "Did you fall in
love with everyone you'd meet? / well that sounds just like me,"
Metivier sings, before finishing the song with a beautiful and gently
devastating couplet, "the dark and rising water / little yellow
leaves."
The record release show for "Viburnum" will feature the entire trio.
"Rebekah and Aric are really versatile and intuitive, so they make
full-band Oweihops shows really exciting for me, because we play a lot
with dynamics and with different tensions between the instruments,"
Metivier said. "Some songs are hushed, but a lot of them get more
toothy."
Amherst instrumentalist Julia Read will open the show.