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Chris Porterfield was once a major figure in the Eau Claire music scene, playing in a long list of great bands including DeYarmond Edison, Laarks and Dinner With Greg. Aside from talent, his knack for capturing and expressing emotion with either intimate or energetic parts was unmatched, and became an asset highly demanded by bands forming in town. It wasn’t until he packed up his guitars and lap steel, donned the alias of Conrad Plymouth and moved to Milwaukee that we got to hear Porterfield’s full potential as a songwriter.
The self-titled debut EP from Conrad Plymouth is a thing of natural beauty. Though stretching just over 18 minutes in its entirety, each individual track on the album is dense and important, creating an intense listening experience. Porterfield builds inspirational folk songs like great and sturdy trees. A foundation forms at the base, usually a sweetly finger-picked guitar which stays in place while other instruments join in and then branch out into expanding melodies. Marching drum beats keep pace and build tension on songs like “Metamora,” and “Here to There,” until they rise up alongside pianos and swells of lightly distorted guitars into glorious choruses.
Porterfield’s voice is a blooming aural spectacle as well. In verses and bridges it’s appropriately soft and aching with a forlorn country-tinge, and in choruses it’s often met by a bevy of harmonies and combinations of rounds and counter-melodies. Lyrics typically graduate from lines of devastation and sorrow into ones expressing great reverence and hope. Opener, “Metamora,” revolves around one of the album’s catchiest melodies and most positive phrases. “I will be a flower or a tree in Metamora Township, Michigan. And the roots will reach…I will bloom again.”
Conrad Plymouth is ever-opening, inviting and warm. Its songs are born in modest shapes and sizes, hiding in dark corners until a first glimpse of light is caught. Then it becomes a creature of thirst, craving more light under which to unfurl. It is constantly flourishing. Always blooming in song. Always reaching upward.
- Andy Plank (May 25, 2011)
I cannot imagine very many things better than the chance to see Conrad Plymouth perform in a park. At 6:30pm on the 30th of June they will do just that in downtown Eau Claire at Phoenix Park as a part of Volume One’s Sounds Like Summer Series.
