Speaking about the films that influenced his fourteenth album, the solitary masterwork In the Shape of a Storm, Damien Jurado tosses out a list of favorites - American Graffiti, Paris, Texas, The Last Picture Show - films in which settings serve as silent, omniscient characters. But inquire about the curious way he writes songs, the hazy manner by which he seems to channel them from beyond the beyond, and the cinematic reference point he reaches for is a surprising one. "You ever see that movie Ghost? Whoopi Goldberg's character, Oda Mae Brown - that's who I am. These spirits are showing up at her door, jumping into her body. That's how I feel. I don't know what's coming out of me... I just show up and deliver it." These are songs about the enormity of the unknown - the shape of storms that threaten to swallow us whole - and above all, they are songs about the connections that keep us from drifting away. "We are not meant to be on our own," Jurado sings on "Throw Me Now Your Arms."
