Time for more this and that music. In other words, yours truly has fallen behind again!
If, like me, you often crave soothing music from an earnest songwriter who doesn’t do fake drama, check out Lisa Bastoni. I picked up two of her albums, her most recent On the Water and 2019’s How We Want to Live. Each is as soothing as a warm shower–even when she’s singing about painful things. On the Water includes a cover of Dylan’s “Workingman’s Blues” but her own “Pockets Full of Sighs” has a similar languid, phlegmatic vibe in that it’s personal yet sounds detached. Mainly it’s just a good song. Also try the upbeat good earworm “Walk a Little Closer.” That’s the versatile Sean Staples with her and the man is lethal with a mandolin in his mitts! How We Want to Live is practically self-defining. “Right Side of the River” covers topics of self-discovery and it’s a backdoor tribute to where she now lives (says her fellow Northamptonite). “Let’s Look at Houses” is a little bit of country and a cheeky sneak attack on property values. Ironically, though this album is often amusing, she wrote it as her marriage was dissolving. Many of the compositions were inspired by her grandmother’s wisdom–not to mention that she inherited “Nora’s Guitar,” a poignant and lovely song on the album.
Moira Smiley has an Irish name, but is a Vermonter by birth. She does some sean-nós (old style) Irish singing, and has performed with Irish musicians, but she’s also grounded in shape-note, jazz, classical, and Eastern European music, plays numerous instruments, and has a penchant for medieval music. For all that, she’s a folkie at heart, if you accept that any album named The Rhizome Project Album will veer into unexpected places. It’s actually the handle of the string quartet that accompanies her, but also descriptive of melodies that sheer in both lateral and horizontal directions. Smiley sings well known trads such as “Go Dig MyGrave, “Now is the Cool of the Day,” and “John o’ Dreams,” the first suitably haunting and sober, the last introed by a poem (that reappears), and makes us wonder about the significance of a vid featuring a beach and a woman in angel wings. The vocal of “Cool of the Day” is as minimalist as “Dig My Grave” is lush. “My Son David” (with Taylor Ashton) is a dark Child ballad that is somehow warm, yet invites eschatological contemplation. I’m assuming there aren’t many Welsh speakers out there, so listen to “Ar lan y mor” to appreciate Smiley’s considerable vocal chops. Pick any track on the album and you’ll discover that old ballads have more present-day relevance than you might imagine.
Kylie Fox specializes in Canadiana music, which like the Americana handle, is a kitchen sink of folk, folk rock, country, and jazz-pop fusion. On Sequoia Fox celebrates things we take for granted. That song pays tribute to firefighters who battled to save a giant tree from perishing, which she connects to other things her life that are rare. It might be a bit of a forced analogy, but many of the strands of Canadiana appear in it. “Brandi Baby” reveals that Fox leans harder toward the pop side of the mélange. It won’t surprise readers that I much prefer straightforward folk such as “Alberta,” which more clearly reveals the colors of Fox’s voice–its power, control, and high-to-low range. It’s inevitable that when musicians opt for a broad repertoire that some explorations will enthrall more than others, but in all honesty I liked Fox’s earlier repertoire better. To my ear it was less cluttered.
Seems only fair to turn to a “Americana record. River of Tears is the seventh studio release from the married duo of Robin Dean and Afton (Seekins) Salmon who perform as Surrender Hill. As noted, Americana is also a catchall category, though the dominant strain isn’t hard to find. For Surrender Hill it’s the rock-influenced modern country music. Nonetheless, it’s been a twisted road to get there; Robin Dean was born in South Africa and once played heavy rock, and Afton is a native Alaskan from a folk background. As songwriters, hers are often the more emotional contributions. On Valentine’s Day she wrote “Holding Me, ”a straight up love song. whose title says it all despite tinges of hopefulness. His contribution was "River of Tears," a love song for sure, but more in the vein of classic country. “Cry Baby” is basically a rock n’ roll song with vocal twang, but “Get Out of Your Own Way” has a Western flavour, right down to the spaces in the musical phrasing. If you like old-style country, “Angel, The Devil and Me” says it all.
Yosef Gutman Levitt is an observant Jew from Jerusalem, but the man plays a mean standup bass, including a five-string model that he had a hand in developing. Gutman’s music emanates from a spiritual place, but he is also interested in what he calls a “light, bouncy” effect created when classical music and jazz improv are made as accessible as folk music. His new release, The World and Its People, is on his own new label, Soul Song Records, a perfect handle for his intentions. He is joined by guitarist Tal Yahalom, cellist Yoed Nir, and pianist Omri Mor. The quartet might not always make music that you’d normally gravitate toward, but as odd as it might sound, many of the compositions have jam band-like explorations. Try the two tracks “My Soul Thirsts” and “Shifting Sky.” Note how the first has an understated yearning and the second what seems a loosely structured meandering that embodies its title.
Rob Weir
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