Album Review: Moondance by Van Morrison
By Frankie Coon, Staff Writer
“The surreal mysticism and vast emptiness of the Hudson Valley.”
Not long ago I stumbled upon this little plaque at a local concert venue up in the Hudson Valley. I was walking around this weaving path outside of what was once a famous recording studio. The plaque had mentioned that Van Morrison had lived in the area of the time of this recording, and that Moondance was influenced a lot by the sights of the Hudson Valley. Instantly I felt like something had clicked; I had never really taken the time to think about the music in that way.
The valley is a very difficult place to understand, there exists a working class grittiness, encompassed by an upper class suburban chic in nearly every small city in the area. Surrounding this class separation, are the mountains, and deep endless woods that once were the site of many legends and folktales. The nights in the Hudson Valley are also barren and chillingly silent, often with a breeze so brisk that even a crack of the window can feel like air conditioning on the lowest temperature. Songs like “Into The Mystic” and the title track‘s breezy, passive jazz orchestration only contextualize this music further in the canon of the Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley is a land further documented by the legends of Rip Van Winkle, and the careers of Bob Dylan and The Band, more so than the actual inhabitants of the area. I find myself confused by the nature of this place, on one hand it’s a haven for rich people and creative minds alike, but on the other, it’s a kind of unspoken secret to the rest of the state of NY. A lot happens here that you wouldn’t expect, and the vastness of the landscape seems more suffocating and cold than welcoming. Finding home in this region feels alienating at times, the people are mostly unspoken and spread widely apart.
If you walk around here for just a little, you become very lost. Behind every slumped maple tree hides a puzzle, and for every puzzle hides a deeper more bizarre journey. After a while you just accept that there’s more to this land than you’ll ever be able to understand completely, but taking a moment to be lost in its abundance of mystery is truly beautiful beyond what words can say.
Somewhere within Van Morrison’s wailing vibratos, lies an embrace for the lack of personal significance and vast emptiness you explore when enveloped by the Hudson Valley’s natural beauty. This stoic beauty of the atmosphere is potent and just as bewildering as the place itself. Moondance finds Van Morrison simply being adrift as a foreigner to this land, and being in awe of it. Maybe the naivety of the songs is a reflection of the shock he experienced, but I’d like to think he felt part of this land during his time here, at least as much as you can be.
The best parts of this album remind me a little bit of the bitter, and a lot more of the savory moments I’ve had in the Hudson Valley. However there are definitely moments on this album that remind me of a lot of the less than stellar moments of a Steely Dan album. Which is not something I’d expect to say in regard to Morrison’s work. Aside from that, Van Morrison’s callings to the past across this album exemplify this kind of fragile nostalgia in a really baroque and sensitive sense. A lot like the chilly waters of the nearby streams, and even more like the soft beaming sunlight that soaks this little cavernous world, Moondance finds a sweet spot between sentimentality and musical creativity.
Final Score: 9.8/10