• Avenues For Belonging: David Berman soundtracked the strangest and saddest parts of life, but also the most beautiful

    August 8, 2019 - By 

    Songwriter and The Thin Air contributor Maija Sofia reflects on the profound and unwavering influence of  late Silver Jews frontman David Berman, and remembers a peerless, uncompromising artist who not only comforted the lonely and lost, but brought them together. I remember very clearly the first night I ever heard Silver Jews, I was sprawled out on the carpet in a big curved room in North London, lying on my stomach with my laptop open and a bottle of Sainsburys’ wine half-finished beside me. It was early summer and I had the window open to the hot dust and the sound…

  • Purple Mountains – Purple Mountains

    July 25, 2019 - By 

    David Berman quit music in 2009. The reasons for retiring his two-decade spanning cult indie-country-rock project as Silver Jews were characteristically bleak. The disbandment, Berman revealed, was because he felt “the SJs were too small of a force to ever come close to undoing a millionth of all the harm” wrought by his Washington lobbyist father, known to many as Dr Evil.  He also, relatable, just wanted more time to read and work on his poetry. Surprisingly then, this year came the announcement of Berman’s first album in ten years, the unexpected eponymous Purple Mountains – and it’s a tentative…