Tiny Voices ranks as one of, if not my absolute, favorite albums (go buy the physical disc, as it is music that seems to year to take physical form). According to AllMusic, the sessions for this album started thirteen years ago today and lasted for a mere five days. When you look at the roster of musicians on the album, it’s not hard to imagine. You have Joe Henry’s songs as a core, with his vision as producer, leading a group of performers who would likely be able to perform a symphony with only a matchbook and rubber bands. But when you *feel* the album’s lushness, when you close your eyes and just listen to how much is going on, it’s hard to imagine this didn’t take a decade to assemble.

It’s no more a reflection of 2003, when it was released, than it is of a jazz bar in 1956 or an indie rock festival from last month. Its sound exists entirely outside of time or place. It is every genre and no genre simultaneously. Each song is like walking down a street with exotic sounds drifting in and out of your hearing from the open doorways of dark, unseen music halls while your step keeps time. Sometimes atonal, not quite in rhythm with what you thought you were hearing.

It’s the spirits of American music sitting down and jamming to a mysterious beat, surging, throbbing and receding like a frantic crowd. It is, in fact, a crowd. The vocal tells you the story while the saxophone whispers the truth and the piano tells you a different tale. The drums insist it’s all lies while the horns try to pull you away, until they all come together in a thunderous, deep, soul shaking chord.

It may have taken five days to record, but I’ve spent more than a decade trying to unravel Tiny Voices’ mysteries. I hope I never succeed.