Rivulets: d e m o s Rivulets - d e m o s
MP3 Album 2010 | Silber 089
10 tracks, 36 minutes
$5 (download only (256 kbps, ~68 megs))
Demos captures an era of Rivulets that hasn’t been documented elsewhere. During the first formative year of Rivulets, an important part of the band was bass player Jason Seckel, who’s minimal long sustained notes style can finally be heard for the first time by many fans. You get to hear early versions of songs like “Four Weeks” & “Past Life” along with unreleased songs like “Sick Love” & our personal favorite “Anyway.”

: Press release
: Listen to the track Four Weeks

Track Listing:
past life, swans, creased, anyway, sick love, tugboat, happy new year, four weeks, anaconda, lacklustre


Reviews:
I’m pretty new to the music of Rivulets (AKA Nathan Admundson), having taken the opportunity to listen to the acoustic version of Stead (from 2002?s Thank You Reykjavik) just a few months ago. It was one of those songs that is so immediately easy to love and inspired the quest to hear more, but I’ve been taking my own sweet time about it. After a track here and there, Debridement finally became my first proper foray into the Rivulets catalogue – which is really quite wonderful and has been on high rotation the last couple of weeks.
Of course, it does further the desire to hear more, so alongside putting all current releases on my ever-growing ‘wish list’, I was happy to learn that not only was a new album planned for release in the near future, but that a recording of demos was recently made available to download via Silber Records, for the more than reasonable sum of US$5.00. (I’m also quite looking forward to the planned Stray Songs, which, according to a post on the Rivulets website, will be a complete collection of singles, compilation tracks and covers spanning 2000-2010).
Originally self-released in 2000 on CDr and containing four tracks, the  digital-only re-release of d e m o s has been expanded by an additional 6 tracks. Unfortunately for me, I’m not familiar with any of the later incarnations of these songs yet, so it’s impossible for me to get the same kind of insight from them that long-time fans might, but even without that history I can certainly appreciate them – some really nice, occasionally raw, work.
From the Silber Records website (for those a little more in the know than me ;) ):
“d e m o s” captures an era of Rivulets that hasn’t been documented elsewhere. During the first formative year of Rivulets, an important part of the band was bass player Jason Seckel, who’s minimal long sustained notes style can finally be heard for the first time by many fans. You get to hear early versions of songs like “Four Weeks” & “Past Life” along with unreleased songs like “Sick Love” & our personal favorite “Anyway.”
For my part, Rivulets is assuredly recommended for fans of softly spoken, highly charged acoustic slowcore – and quite likely to appeal to fans of Boduf Songs, Tiny Vipers, Jessica Bailiff (who has, I see, been a collaborator on a few projects) and Spokane.
~ Satellite for Entropy

In 2001, just before his first album, I discovered Rivulets on MP3.com, a kind of ancestor of Myspace and Bandcamp were musicians were able to feature this music. 
He was offering a demo ep of four songs. I reviewed this ep and followed his discography during this decennia. Silber Media is now releasing the complete version of these "d e m o s". The four songs I already know, along with six others, among them a cover of Galaxie 500, "Tugboat" and a previously unreleased track "Sick Love".
Just below my review of the four song version of this release, written in French almost ten years ago:
"Rivulets, originaire de Minneapolis, MN, est Nathan Amundson, la petite vingtaine, parfois accompagné d’un bassiste sur ce quatre titres qui est leur première sortie. Un album éponyme produit par les membres de Low vient d’ailleurs de sortir sur leur propre label, Chairkickers Union.
Essentiellement basées sur la guitare folk et la voix de Nathan, les compositions de Rivulets rappellent les instants les moins pop et les plus sombres de Nick Drake, mais aussi ceux les plus apaisés et nocturnes de Palace, Cat Power ou Red House Painters.
Quatre folk songs discrètes et sombres de « bedroom pop nostalgia » qui grandissent au fil des écoutes. D’humbles ombres de mélancolie qui imposent la nuit comme climat d’écoute et qu’on laissera filer à bas régime autour d’une simple bougie, d’un spot discret.
Un ep prêt à rendre plus élevé, plus profond ce qu’on lui injecte. Comme une léger creux le long d’un chemin où l’on peut se réfugier quelques instants, quelques heures couché dans l’herbe sauvage, afin de se reposer, de réfléchir, avant de repartir, régénéré de l’intérieur, reprendre sa place dans le flux de la vie.
Chut pas un bruit, des millions d’oreilles passeront à côté de ces treize minutes. Quelques autres sauront y trouver leur chemin tels des papillons de nuits égarés se fiant à ces quatres étoiles scintillantes pour abreuver leur âme.
Sur « Past Life » plane l’ombre de Nick Drake, filiation évidente dans les accords de guitare et le retrait rêveur du chant. Deux minutes de folk en noir et blanc mélancolique. C’est la seule plage que l’on pourra accuser d’un petit manque de personnalité.
Une basse s’adjoint sur « Swans » et confère une légère saveur planante à Rivulets, qui gagne là quelques dimensions, nuances d’ombres. Cœurs déchirés et mal d’être silencieux pavent ces chemins de désolation et solitude où tombe, muette, une bruine froide et anonyme.
Un frêle espoir se dépose à la surface de « Creased » comme une pluie de sable du Sahara certaines nuit d’été sur l’Europe. Séduction à son apex, poussière d’étoile et chemin d’éveil à travers la fatigue, ballade égayée des rares bruits nocturnes naturels. A ces quelques instants on devine que Rivulets est au-delà du simple musicien en autothérapie, replié sur sa guitare, car on part en voyage nous aussi.
La nuit mène indéfiniment à l’aube – c’est la même histoire – et quelques rayons de soleil traversent le ciel dans la fraîcheur « Anyway.. ». A peine éveillé, on marche en sandales, se mouillant les pieds dans la rosée tandis que des brumes s’étiolent de ci de là.
Une révélation. "
Ten years later, these demos seem already to belong to a long lost era, and as 7/10 of these songs ("Anyway", "Sick Love" and "Tubgoat" are only featured here) were recorded later, often in more developed and nuanced version, "D e m o s" should almost being reserved to the die-hard fans of Nathan Amundson, but once that said, I'm glad to add this important missing piece to his discography,  and it's amazing to notice the constant quality of his songwriting since the beginning, everything in place since the first song until now, Rivulets's foundations are as solid and as deep as a rock half buried in a pale landscape stuck under wintry grey skies.
And this re-release is welcome to cut this four year hiatus as his last official release was "You are my home" in 2006, it's good see him back in action and finishing as mentioned on his blog a promised new album.
"D e m o s" is Nathan Amundson with is voice and acoustic guitar playing bare melancholic poignant songs, sometimes helped by a bassist for slowcore accent. His cover of "Tugboat" is also a welcome reference and a proof of coherence with the artistic family he belongs too.
It is also funny to discover that ten years later I'm still enjoying this songs as much as before and that I'm still looking for this kind of music considering some of my last musical discovers like Vio/Miré or Deep Waters. 
"D e m o s" is a territory of nostalgia, and you get caught in the same type of emotions you can have with Nick Drake's "Tanworth-in-Arden 1967/68" collection of demos, meaning it is authentic and worth listening. 
Of course a good number of these alternate early versions don't have the glow and production quality of their later album versions but just for the sake of "Anyway", one of his best songs ever, "D e m o s" is a necessary halt.
~ Didier Goudeseune, Derives

Une voix, une guitare – la nuit chuchoterait-elle toujours après minuit ? On pourra toujours chercher : rien n’arrive à la cheville de Rivulets lorsqu’il s’agit de ne faire chanter la solitude qu’avec ces deux instruments. On peut crier à l’injustice. C’est depuis dix ans l’un des secrets les mieux gardés d’Amérique. On peut aussi prendre le train en marche, partir à la découverte des futurs compagnons de route que seront à n’en pas douter Rivulets, Debridement ou You Are My Home, trois albums tellement intimes et universels à la fois que le temps lui-même ne parviendra pas à les défaire. Il en va de même pour l’anecdote, ces toutes premières démos rééditées ici sous forme digitale. Tout est déjà là, au creux de l’oreille : dix chansons nues sur la branche, un arrache cœur minimum (Four Weeks, toujours aussi poignant). Cet homme-là chante la mélancolie comme personne, exactement comme si c’était la première fois qu’on entendait ça.
~ Autres Directions