Max García Conover’s new record, “Deer,” (Son Canciones) came out on June 3. It feels like a collection of poems in the best possible way. As Max talks about in our most recent podcast, not poems like the ones you read in school–“intelligence tests,” meant to be obtuse. No, these are songs that keep you awake to yourself and the world.

They are mostly quiet, and there is a tendency for uncertainty, or, at least, a questioning of what makes us so certain. The songs, to borrow a line from Frank Burroughs, “won’t keep still,” and that’s what I like about them. Sometimes when I listen, they’re sorrowful, sometimes joyful, and that’s life, isn’t it? As MC Taylor sings, “It’s a beautiful world, but painful, child.” That, to me, is what Deer captures–the beauty of our interconnectedness and its fragility; the importance of attention and the costs of inattention. 

Photo: Shaw Photography