Celluloid Bachelor #39: Cars & Trains "I Know Someone Who Can't Recognize"

Today's track comes to us from the west coast's answer to Brooklyn: Portland, Oregon. A welcome scratchy, mostly acoustic jam on this cold winter morn, Cars & Trains' "I Know Someone Who Can't Recognize" is a perfect introduction to the multi-instrumental talents of Tom Filepp. On The Roots, The Leaves (set to drop January 26th via Fake Four), Filepp mobilizes technology in a way that sounds disarmingly natural and organic, probably thanks to key appearances by woodwinds, banjos, and even a glockenspiel.

The visuals are comprised of spliced vintage footage, largely from the 40s and early 50s that include various scenes such as WW II bomber runs, family vacation trips, packed highways, and educational nature films. Take together, the images and music present a past recalled not through memory but through anthropology, with a detached narrative that is starkly (and laudably) sentimental and largely anti-nostalgic.

cars & trains - i know someone who can't recognize from cars & trains on Vimeo.