Phish.net

From “Home” (“When the night leaks slowly through and puts its hands on you”) to “Dark and Down” (“To what to drown on, drowned again”) to the title track (“Thin, cold stream enters this awful dream) to the deceptively poppy “Low” (“Put a place inside where you can go away”), 18 Steps is an album filled with imagery of darkness, loneliness, and collapse. Yet the penultimate song on the EP is a moment of clarity; a floating, instrumental tune called “Agnes.” 

The name “Agnes” comes from the Greek word hagne, meaning “holy” or “pure,” and it is a fitting name for this airy composition. With a gentle acoustic melody augmented by wisps of slide guitar, the song seems to lay back on cool grass, watching a few puffy clouds drift through an azure sky.  

“Agnes” is one of three tracks from 18 Steps (the others being “Home” and “Rose Alone”) that have yet to be performed live.