Some customers at my local record store tried to return this record because it “wasn’t long enough”. That’s like suing Rothko for not using enough colours. Boneset says what it needs to say and nothing else. The quality of a record shouldn’t be defined by how long it plays for, but how deep it sinks its anchor. Here, Diane Cluck tilts back and forth between graceful spirituality and macabre sorrow. Her gratitude for life is bolstered, not diminished, by her knowledge that it can’t last. By doing this, she makes lines like “It’s so nice to see you” into vital statements of purpose. There’s an anatomical intimacy going on, the kind between husbands, wives and morticians alike. It’s as if, with bloodied sensual lines like “She pinned my tail down, pulled the wishbone wide”, she’s bridging the definitions of open-hearted and open-chested. To say that we’re just an ungainly collection of molecules forever dying shouldn’t diminish the beauty of our connections. If any record illustrates this, it’s this one.
Lost and Safe 