Over the Rhine Record Review, 2001

Over the Rhine
Films for Radio
Virgin/Back Porch 2001
11 Tracks/57:03

I think maybe this recording, this collection of songs is about internal worlds, about the dialogue that runs inside all of us, conversation we have with ourselves. We hope anyone who hears these songs will find some fresh language and maybe a soundtrack of sorts for the stories we’re all writing everyday with our lives, whether or not we ever pick up a pen…

– Linford Detweiler

Over the Rhine is not just a band. Over the Rhine is an ethos, an awareness, a media of consciousness on a Jungian scale. On their latest project, Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist have once again enabled that communion of ear, eye, soul, and friend. And like the Eucharist, sometimes the wine that runs across your lips is sweet, sometimes sour; but each time you walk that aisle and feel your knees against that stiff, red cushion, and your elbows against the wooden rail, you know two things: you are alive, and you are not alone.

Films for Radio, OtR’s latest, makes no exception to the rule of musical excellence and lyrical lucidity that has marked all of their work to date. Nestled in the middle of its musical journey, I Radio Heaven particularly looks life straight in the eye:

the truth is i bleed you / when these frequencies cut me / i’m a slut with a mission / a singular vision / i radio heaven / i get mixed signals / i move the antenna / i switch the channels

From the modern, loop and string ingrooved The World Can Wait, to the sparse and breathy When I Go, OtR delivers an extremely mixed musical set, while at the same time the intimate and uncautioned tones of Karin’s voice become almost a mist, an aroma…

the body / is a book / of matches / a little fire / is required / of this kindling flame / Ohio Blue Tip Strike Anywhere / strike me / anywhere

…longing to feel, longing to be felt; longing to know, longing to be known. The music is like a soundtrack to a perplexing story of a life, moving around the deep-rooted plot like smoke fills a small social hall. Musical and ethical comparisons fade, however OtR definitely belongs in the soul timeline somewhere near Joni Mitchell and Jewell.

As with any greatness, one’s strength can also become one’s weakness; and if Linford uses one more juicy simile in his writing, it will be like a…well, you get the idea. And the lack of a definable single will most likely keep this Cincinnati duo, best known for touring with the Cowboy Junkies, Americana’s best kept secret. Which is exactly how OtR’s strong, and extremely loyal, fanbase would like it to stay.

Films For Radio is indeed an apt title for this romantic medley of life, art, and music.

These days are pages, these years chapters. A plot emerges which is sometimes lost, often revised. Characters come and go, the people I have known, the limited cast of humans that one life can bear. Some I betray, some I love. Some I admire, some I pity. Some I teach, some teach me. Some I lust after, some are naked and I hope to clothe them…