If anyone has read the insert to the last Fleet Foxes record they are familiar with the idea that music can be an excellent place holder for one's personal history. I could not agree more with Robin Pecknold. The logical conclusion is that a record will bring you to a certain place, but I think an albums power is greater than "theoretical" transporation to a physical location but more like a time in life where certain emotions or thoughts were demonating.

With all that said, a friend of mine put on David Mead's "Indiana" when two friends and I were driving a 22 foot moving truck from San Antonio to New York at the end of the summer. I don't remember being immediately struck by the record. Sure the sounds were pretty and pleasant to the ear but I didn't feel the weight of the record, which probably has to do with the fact that I slept through it but nevertheless this record, which somehow found its way onto my iPod and is one of the most listened to albums I own, has become to represent transition.

To get away from the ridiculousness that is semantics, this record represents change in a much greater sense than just transportation from one physical location to another. That road trip was symbolic in this great transition that was occuring in my own personal life. I think its fascinating that an album can not only bring up an image of driving up the east coast of America but also the emotions and sensations that were a result of processing things like graduating college, falling in love, or whatever it may be.

I don't think its a coincidence that this record has come to bear this significance. Mead's exception use of geography as a metaphor would obviously resenate with anyone experiencing change in any sense. Take the closing track of the album "Queensboro Bridge" with lines such as "But this is the wrong time for saying prayers/a kiss at the taxi will do/so take the Queensboro Bridge to the airport/I'll be waiting for you". A song on one level about watching a lover leave for good but at the surface seeing a physical landmark as this sort of black hole that is causing a heartbreaking change in his life.

For anyone who has experienced Grey Hound buses in the wee hours of the morning, David Mead's "Indiana" is the perfect companion to contemplate the eternally perplexing "what is next?".