One of my albums of 2011, Washed Out’s “Within And Without” commences as if arriving from another world, another stratosphere. You can almost hear the spaceship's door open as the beautiful melodies of “Eyes Be Closed” meander their way out of the speakers.
Upon first listening, I thought this would be the ultimate album to sit somewhere in Big Sur, spliff in hand, and just look out at the majesty of the sea, the coast, the world. But somehow this album works too when wandering around stifling tower blocks and concrete grey skies, the feeling of snow imminent in the air. There is a universality to the way it soothes and saunters and suggests its theme (although the album cover proposes it’s not a bad soundtrack for bedroom manoeuvres).
Granted, it’s definitely an album that couldn’t be listened to every day of this year (if such a blog were to exist!), and it’s not an instant dip-in, dip-out listen to the big anthemic songs only. It’s not the kind of album either that you put on when you’re newly in love or when the bank has charged you an inexplicably ridiculous fee. But there’s a beauty from listening to every song build and develop from the next – you get the most pleasure from this album sitting or walking or grooving to each and every song in succession.
It is a headphone album though, and anyone wanting to understand the deeper meaning of the lyrics would have to strain (or be at one with searching Google). The harmonies, the melodies, the bass lines, the beats (muffled or simmering) that normally support a lyric instead on this album take centre stage - and any that you do catch, such as on “Amor Fati”, ask you why you’re making such an effort…
“Don't try, you'll find / Was not your fault / The goal, reach out / The choice is yours to find”
There is a religious feeling to the music (whether intended or not) and unlike Passion Pit’s album, this album seems less specific about which religion – more a general feeling of serenity, of spiritualism, of riding a wave upon a board and being at one with your body (can’t shake the Californian imagery!). “Before” is the epitome of this sense of tranquillity in motion.
But there’s also a sadness that permeates each song, hesitatingly sometimes, which reaches a crescendo on “Far Away”. The driving beat belies the luxurious floating vocal, as if drawing us from relaxing, as if finding a kind of action in melancholy. Similarly, “You and I” feels like something has been lost and has now become unattainable.
It’s not until the final track “A Dedication” do the lyrics become clear and crystallised – the song stands out by opening with a nude piano track, devoid of beats. It’s almost as if the album has taken us on a journey of longing, of waiting, of dejection to reach the epiphany at the end “Don't be scared it's over now, I swear”. The clinch captured in the album art, like the album itself, is about letting someone go, not drawing them in – the last moments of the embrace, the end of the affair.
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