Review Summary: Thank you for chirping so perfectly, birds.
Days of Effort and Ease is essentially a series of entrancing ramblings. It gives off the mystique of a very personal recording, one that you can just grasp the meaning of but is written with enough intimacy that the true meaning never leaves the tip of your tongue. These are attic recordings of a man sitting by himself surrounded by dusty artifacts and playing into old cassette recorders, picking up the ambience of the world that is continuing around him. Even though I have absolutely no indication or proof of what his actual recording process looked like, these are the images that are conjured in my mind as I listen to Twain. I can’t imagine I’m too far off, however, as outside of Mat Davidson crediting himself for “singing, instruments, and engineering”, the only other artists credited are birds for their chirping, bamboo for its rustling, doors for their slamming, and a “neighbors smoke alarm with dying 9v battery” for the beeping. The fact that all of these additional details occurred through happenstance make them appear heavensent, as they add to the feelings of this perfectly imperfect album.
Days of Effort and Ease is certainly not a perfect album. It’s slightly monotonous, with its lo-fi energy largely being focused around Davidson’s acoustic strumming and his delicate warbling, sometimes providing himself with harmonies. But every once in a while an organ will pop up, or maybe a simple string accompaniment, and these moments directly conflict with Twain trying to trick you into thinking that this was a low-effort recording. So much of the album sounds simple, but you can tell he is an artist that knows exactly what he needs to do with his craft. It reflects the title of the album - I can’t tell whether this is the most simply put together album I’ve ever heard or one of the most thought-out and complicated. Even the lyrics represent this theme. There aren’t necessarily any great turns of phrases and the vocabulary used is fairly simple, but the ways in which Davidson presents the words makes them sound as though they are the most fascinating lines ever uttered. Which again, makes very little sense, as the vocal delivery across the album is fairly one-note, but beguiling at the same time.
I’ll be entirely honest and say that I just found
Days of Effort and Ease earlier this morning. I’ve listened to it probably about ten times since, each listen grasping its confusing claws around me further and further. I have absolutely no desire to turn it off. There’s a real chance that when I do finally turn it off, I’ll rarely, if ever, return to it. However, I would argue that the absolutely engrossing day it has given me at this point has the same worth as albums that have years of replay ability. So no matter what our future together may bring, thanks for giving me a memorable June 21st of 2020, Twain.
