Last updated: 4 days ago
Under the canopy of the Dakotan sky––an expanse so unsettlingly symmetrical to the blanket of land beneath as to muddle most horizon-gazers’ sense of depth and distance––there exists a pervasive and unique brand of lonesomeness. It wheezes in the sighing, dusted lungs of the farmer and in the flickering lashes of the gray-eyed truck stop waitress.
More concretely, this distinct, lonesomeness weaves and winnows from the singing tongue of Jake Ingamar. Not since Hazlewood hitched his last lift out of Trouble has one songsmith so gently ladled the common man’s achings from the still waters of rural life. Largely conceived and recorded alone in a 1963 Greyhound bus parked permanently in the heart of a do-nothing town, Ingamar’s EPs unspool threads of longing and loss. Companions in dimly-lit spirit and dusty title, Antiques, treasures of anguish ordinary and ornate.
Whether fronting a group or by his own accompaniment, it’s the live arena where Ingamar’s truest brilliance lay. A lifetime of performance, though briefer than his songcraft would suggest, has found him sharing sold-out stages across America with the likes of Band of Horses, Parker Millsap, Sawyer Fredericks, and Charlie Parr.
Whether one witnesses his craft in crystallized recording or live in the flesh, to hear him––to truly hear him––is to trace with one’s fingers the silver linings of those yawning clouds of the high prairie. To hear him is to lift the weighty gauze of lonesomeness we all carry.
- S. Anderson
More concretely, this distinct, lonesomeness weaves and winnows from the singing tongue of Jake Ingamar. Not since Hazlewood hitched his last lift out of Trouble has one songsmith so gently ladled the common man’s achings from the still waters of rural life. Largely conceived and recorded alone in a 1963 Greyhound bus parked permanently in the heart of a do-nothing town, Ingamar’s EPs unspool threads of longing and loss. Companions in dimly-lit spirit and dusty title, Antiques, treasures of anguish ordinary and ornate.
Whether fronting a group or by his own accompaniment, it’s the live arena where Ingamar’s truest brilliance lay. A lifetime of performance, though briefer than his songcraft would suggest, has found him sharing sold-out stages across America with the likes of Band of Horses, Parker Millsap, Sawyer Fredericks, and Charlie Parr.
Whether one witnesses his craft in crystallized recording or live in the flesh, to hear him––to truly hear him––is to trace with one’s fingers the silver linings of those yawning clouds of the high prairie. To hear him is to lift the weighty gauze of lonesomeness we all carry.
- S. Anderson
