“Old Beginnings” was released roughly 8 months after “(Winter/Heart) Break”, but the production of the album, consciously or subconsciously, began some months before the winter album. Released on August 27th, 2010, it is arguably the best Ericksøn album to date, both in its subject matter, musicianship, and cohesiveness. This album too, was produced with the concept of story-telling in mind, both to tell his own story but also a universal story of recklessness, footlooseness, the thirst for adventure and travel, with the exception of “Sunday Morning”, which was produced to honor the predicament of soldiers who against their will fight in other men’s wars. The tracks are arranged in such a way that a story is told through them, from a departure of a city that raised the narrator, to an escape into the open world, to the recollection of what was left behind (or how he was left behind by someone else)…The album is mostly anecdotes, whether told through words or through instrumentals, and each song can be applied to a certain moment, to a certain event, in the narrator’s journey.
The album looks to explore the mental and emotional process of someone who has a thirst to leave, to get away, to disconnect, but through disconnection, to connect with another, greater thing. A progression is clear from the start to finish as we see the narrator’s excitement die, as he has more experience, and as he begins to truly appreciate what he can now see he had in the grounded life.
Musically, this is perhaps Ericksøn’s most experimental album, although the musicality of the songs is not random or incoherent when placed next to each other. Erickson attempted to push the boundaries of his music, playing new instruments, or the same instruments he always had in different ways. By writing a song in the style of a sea shanty (“The Northwestern Shore”), playing guitars with violin bows (“The Northwestern Shore”, “How Long?”), hitting strings instead of plucking them (“How Long?”), using Peruvian Quenas (panflutes, “Sunrise over Peaks”), beatboxing (“Sunday Morning”), and playing a Pakistani drum with jazz brushes (“Hewn”, “Waiting for this Train”).
Another exploration in “Old Beginnings” is the use of ambiance. As the album was recorded during the summer, the locations in which Erickson recorded were often full of crickets in the evenings. He took advantage of this and often used the crickets to contextualize the song, either by placing it in the summer setting, natural setting, or evening setting. He also used flies in “I Have Fallen Behind” to create the image of stagnation, decay, death. Also in “I Have Fallen Behind”, Erickson experimented with the use of animal sounds and the moods they can set within a song. The wolves howling in this song are done by Erickson and then effected in such a way to make them near unrecognizeable.
Finally, “Old Beginnings” is the album in which Erickson shows the progression of his use of the guitar in his music. In almost every track on the album there is either acoustic or electric guitar, and the use of guitar is countless different genres of music heavily influenced the versality of the guitar within Erickson’s music in this album. Perhaps the furthest he branched out from his normal uses of the guitar is the solo in “Sunday Morning” in which he uses a distorted electric guitar during the climax of the song. Never having soloed before in one of his songs, this was a new and interesting experience as he wrote a solo instead of just improvised it.
“Old Beginnings” again is a cathartic and emotional experience. The album places the listener within the mind and heart of Erickson, and looks to make clear, if not for the listener, for the artist himself, who he is at this moment, where he is, why he is, etc. The album was written during a period of stagnation, which curiously gave way to artistic innovation and creation.