A Ghost Story Will Haunt You in Deep Ways

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A GHOST STORY (2017)

Directed by David Lowery

A24, 92 minutes, R (for no good reason whatsoever)

★★★★

We often use the words "film" and "movie" as synonyms. They can be, but film is actually the medium and is more versatile. When film is used to tell a story, we call it a "movie," but that's inadequate for something like A Ghost Story, which is filled with non-linear imagery, alternative realities, and eschatological questioning. It does feature a ghost, but its spooky qualities are far beyond that of garden-variety horror movies. We're talking the sort of haunting that will leave you shattered. Director David Lowery tackles the scariest thing imaginable: What happens when we die?

Actress Jeanne Moreau may not be your idea of a philosopher, but she once uttered these wise words: "It's just as idiotic to say there is no life after death as it is to say there is one." Gaze into the sky and tell me why humankind is special. Alternatively, how does one reconcile the concept of eternity with assertions from physics that at some point, all suns, stars, and galaxies will vanish into black holes? What if the Buddhists are right and Nirvana is a state of nothingness? Meaning is on trial in A Ghost Story, a film in which the characters don't even have names.

A Ghost Story will remind you of films such as The Tree of Life; 2001: A Space Odyssey; Melancholia; Wings of Desire; and even Truly, Madly, Deeply, though our ghost can't comfort the grieving lover he leaves behind. The film stars—more in a celestial than a celebrity sense—Casey Affleck, who spends most of the film wordlessly wandering under a shroud. We first meet him living and breathing in bed next to Rooney Mara, where they cuddle in near silence avoiding discussion of another one they did not have earlier. Suddenly the living room piano emits a loud discordant sound, though no one else is in the house and nothing visible has fallen on the keys. If these things sound meta, add to the list that Mara's skin is pale, luminous, and cadaverous, but it is Affleck who the next day lies in the morgue. His sheeted body—or is it his spirit?—rises from the gurney, walks down the hospital corridor toward a bright light, but pauses and the portal closes. Then things get really weird. When we next see him, his spectral self stands in his kitchen watching Mara angrily stab and devour an entire pie in an attempt to strike at her consuming grief. The scene is drawn out, silent, poignant, and simultaneously grotesque and beautiful.

Is Affleck in purgatory? Maybe, but the film raises questions about ante and postmortem existence, themes expounded upon later in the film when a future party pooper (Will Oldham) delivers a lecture on the inevitable demise of the cosmos. It's the only part of the film that has more than a few words of dialogue. Some party-goers listen; others continue to make merry. After all, what more can be said about a void? The ghost witnesses this scene, as he does other inhabitants and events that take place in the house after Mara departs it. Is it because he is tethered to this plot of land? Is it simply that because time is irrelevant to a spirit, or something else? Many readings are possible, but it put me in mind of Einstein's discovery that time and space bend. An offshoot of that is Eternalism, the postulate that past, present, and future coexist—perhaps in other dimensions, perhaps in repeating loops. The film itself is circular in construction and moves from present to future to past, and back to the present. A dimensional shift is suggested in the meta of all meta scenes in which Affleck's ghost momentarily sees his own ghost in a room with his living self.

What are we to make of all this? That's probably up to you. You could put a Buddhist spin on it, but you can also make the case for everything from existentialism, nihilism, and Cartesian dualism. There are also hints of the African concepts of sasha and zamani that assert that the dead exist in limbo as long as anyone alive remembers them, then they move on. Or maybe it's all just a matter of physics. Just two things are clear to me. First, though death is universal, this is not a film for everyone. To appreciate it you need to put on your hard thinking caps and be prepared to confront Lovecraft-like unseen fears. If you're not willing, join the merrymakers and tune out impending doom.

Second, A Ghost Story is visually astonishing. Director James Lowery and choreographer Andrew Droz Palermo provide new angles from which to contemplate big things—literally. Tight shots combine with slow zoom outs to create heart-rending moments such as the folds of Affleck's shroud and his twisted figure melding seamlessly into Mara's sleeping body entwined in sheets. In another, Mara lies on her back, stretches, and her fingers inch upward across the floor, where they almost touch the hem of Affleck's spectral garment. Later, high and low angle shots combine to make scenes cramped and claustrophobic from a human point of view, but wide open and expansive from a ghostly perspective. Others induce vertigo; still others skew normal perspective—such as having the ghost fall upside down from a skyscraper, yet with the grace of a bird in flight.

This is one the longest movie reviews I have ever posted in part because of the subject matter, and in part because I haven't stopped thinking about this the film since viewing it. Perhaps what I've written strikes you as a lot of incoherent mumbo-jumbo masquerading as art. It might be, but I think it is a near masterpiece marred only by logical inconsistencies in it that have nothing to do with its irresolvable subjects. The ghost isn't seen by the living, yet it's inferred one small boy does so. Why? If the ghost is non-corporeal, how can he hurl dishes around a room, scratch at door frames, or turn doorknobs? Why would a ghost even use a door? But given that he does, why is he stuck to this one place? Why does he defy some laws of physics but conform to others? Why choose just one moment to be malevolent?

Maybe these are the wrong questions to ask. Perhaps the point of making a near-silent film is to force us to contemplate the ineffable without the clutter of words. Do we know what's under our own shrouds? Is it a new light in the cosmos, just stardust, or nothing at all? This is a strange, quirky, ambiguous film that back in the 1960s would have labeled a "mind-fucker." Wait for the end. Is the reveal satisfying, or the most terrifying thing you can imagine. Work it out for yourself. This is a film, not a movie.

Rob Weir

In a Still Small Voice: Cortese, Bragg, Bombara, Plett, and Bush

A cheesy TV show tells us that America's got talent. If only forging a music career were as easy as a few moments of instant fame under the camera's glare. The music industry can be especially brutal for women, only a handful of whom break through past the age of 30. (Debbie Harry, Rachel Platten, and Lori McKenna spring to mind.) Let's be blunt: there's an oversupply of female vocalists with "pretty," but small voices. How does one break away from the pack before the fullness of one's vocal patina oxidizes? Here's a sampling of female singers handling that question well.

Laura Cortese is another superb talent from Boston's Berklee School of Music. She's also something of a vet by now—a cofounder of the Hub's Celtic Music Festival, has performed with mighty lineups (including Band of Horses and Uncle Earl), and has just released California Calling, her seventh album. She fronts a very cool band called The Dance Cards: Jenna Moynihan (fiddle, banjo), Valerie Thompson (cello), Natalie Bohrn (bass), and Sam Kassirer (keys). Collectively they evoke the harmonies of The Wailin' Jennys, but with more adventuresome instrumentation. Cortese's leads are noted less for their clarity or virtuosity than for their emotional power. The bluegrassy "Low Hum"—bronzed by Moynihan's banjo—is both ethereal and drone drenched; those such as "Skipping Stones" and "If You Can Hear Me" are reverberant in the way voices sound in a sparsely furnished room. The title track has echoes of Enya, though the overall piece is hipper and Thompson's cello infuses nervous energy. Other standouts include the rhythmic "Stockholm," the soulful "Pace Myself," and "Rhodedendron [sic]," with vocals appropriate for a gospel choir. ★★★★

Mary Bragg also shines by fronting a band, in her case a gritty one: Rich Hinson (electric/pedal steel guitar), Jimmy Sullivan (bass), Bryan Owings (drums), and various guests with whom she co-wrote the ten songs on Lucky Strike. Before landing in Nashville, Bragg left Georgia to spend some time working in New York City soup kitchens where, as the expression goes, she saw some things. Many of the characters on this album are on the wrong side of life's margins: a young woman who fled her emotionally abusive preacher father ("Bayou Lullaby,"), vagabonds ("Drifters Hymn,") those who can't move on "(Isn't It Over Yet,"), and—a personal favorite, the robust "Wreck and Ruin," a whole town full of people who've been kicked in the teeth: Left—nobody gets left in this town/Everybody here has already done all their letting down. It was co-written with Becky Warren (as were three other songs) and it's not a song for terminal optimists: We've given up giving a damn about broken hearts. The title track is like that too; in Bragg's words, it's a "sarcastic poke at hopefulness." She sings … looking for a lucky strike/To pull me out of the back of the line. Don't hold your breath! Another favorite is "Wildfire," which she penned with the talented Liz Longley. It's about dangerous attraction: Wildfire, there's nothing like a wildfire/Feeling that you can't put out/Loving that you can't turn down…. Bragg's songs are mostly in the country rock/country folk side of the musical ledger, but don't let her dulcet tones fool you; she's tough as nails.****

Speaking of grit, St. Louis-based Beth Bombara isn't afraid to sing about the depths because she's plumbed them. Her latest, Map & No Direction is the product of two years of battling with depression. "Sweet Time," which honors her husband's role in helping her through, is evocative of retro Sam Cooke, but with a softer cheek-to-cheek slow dance feel. Don't get used to this—most of Bombara's material has a harder edge. The title track is edgy and urgent and arranged rootless roots style, by which I mean it opens folky and melodic but slides into bold and crunchy. Apparently part of Bombara's recovery involves kicking out the jams. "When I Woke Up" and "Made For Now" are no-frills rock with drums pounding and guitar licks slicing the seams. "I Tried (Too Late)" also rocks and parts recall Jackson Browne. Every song on this recording is a winner but—as much as Dylan devotees will spew venom—her cover of "Blind Willie McTell" surpasses the original. Bombara draws comparisons to Aimee Mann, though a St. Louis newspaper called her a "bourbon warmed Neko Case." I can't top that, so let's go with it. ★★★★

Canada's Melissa Plett serves country twang with folk and soul seasoning. Although there are contemporary elements, Ghost Town features time-honored country recipes: broken hearts, strong drink, bad times, revenge, and death. Even the waltz tempo "Stay" begins like a lover's supplication, but it's actually about missing her mother. Plett's titles alert us to look for the dark amidst the light: "Sunshine and Liquor," "Gone," "Handle of Whisky…."  (I've got a handle of good whisky/Don't got a handle on my heart.) The old valentine is also an issue on "Sideways," in which she walks away from temptation, but isn't sure if that's wise or regrettable. "Mexico" warns of the perils of seeking miracles, and the piercing sting of "Trigger" has a chilling resolution. Plett's voice is, at turns, vulnerable, husky, and emotive—often with a catch that stops just short of a yodel. Occasionally, she pushes things too close to the top of her range, but this project has appealing throwback vibe that redeems—even if Plett is skeptical of that sort of thing. ★★★

A quick word on an older release that recently came to my attention. Molly Bush hails from Texas and lives in Nashville, but her 2016 From a Year Ago, Forget About It is suggestive of what someone with folk sensibilities can do with musicians who know when to lay back and when to lay it on. Bush has a lovely, clear voice and I was impressed by how she switched from the simple and sweet ("Letter Song"), to shimmery ("Sailboats"), to let-it-rip ("Spirit"). Maybe next release I'll catch her in the same calendar year!

Rob Weir   

Old Salt Union: October Album of the Month

OLD SALT UNION

Old Salt Union

Compass Records

I was impressed the first time I saw Old Salt Union back in 2014. Since then this Belleville, Illinois quintet has done nothing except get better. Their new self-titled release—the band’s third full LP, but debut on Compass—is testament to their rise to the top tier of working bluegrass bands. Like others in that august company—such as The Steep Canyon Rangers, Mumford and Sons, Union Station, Railroad Earth, The Avett Brothers, and Trampled By Turtles—OSU fuses the traditions of classic string bands with ingredients such as classical music, jam band experimentation, rock, folk, and pop. Fiddler John Brighton was actually trained as a classical violinist and he displays a few highbrow riffs on “Where I Stand,” and eases them into fast and gritty passages that would do proud someone the likes of Darol Anger. That song also includes a line that grabbed me: A dollar and a broken heart/Didn’t seem to get me very far. A tune titled “Flatt Baroque” speaks for itself once you know it’s Lester that’s getting the longhair treatment—mostly on mandolin.

OSU’s versatility stuns. Consider that guitarist Rob Kindle holds a jazz degree, that mando artist Justin Wallace loves both stripped down bluegrass and pop music, that chief vocalist and banjo player Ryan Murphey trained as a horticulturalist, and that bass player Jay Farrar is also a hip hop producer. Now imagine all those interests somehow come together. “Feel My Love” is pop catchy and barn dance old at the same time; “Tuscaloosa” is one part 40s string band, another part retro jazz. You can also hear the balladic “Bought and Sold;” the moody “On My Way” with its frenetic bass lines, tight harmonies, and fiddle/banjo duels; and the hard-driving “Here and Off My Mind.” Then circle back to the dramatic “Hard Line,” which simply obliterates boundaries between bluegrass, folk, jazz, and classical. For pure fun, tough, it’s hard to top Justin Wallace taking the vocal lead for a killer cover of Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al.” 

“To salt” is an old infinitive verb the references the placement of a ringer employee in a workplace with the sole purpose of organizing a union. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the band’s name, but if we think metaphorically, a lot of different experiences came together to form the united body that is Old Salt Union. Power to the union!  

Rob Weir

Radio Free Vermont Fun, but Uneven

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RADIO FREE VERMONT: A FABLE OF RESISTANCE (November 2017)

Bill McKibben

Blue River Press, 240 pages

★★

If a crusty Vermonter laced a pint of Ben & Jerry’s with a psychotropic, consumed it, and went off to bed, his dream might come out something like Radio Free Vermont. This uneven book is fun and pokes fun at Corporate America run amok, but the key to reading is embracing the word “fable” in its subtitle. I am a big fan of eco activist/journalist Bill McKibbin—one of the most important voices on climate change in North America. McKibbin has authored sixteen non-fiction books and has written for every publication from The Atlantic and The New York Times to National Geographic and Rolling Stone, but Radio Free Vermont is his first novel. Objectivity demands that I say that as much as I enjoyed the novel’s sentiments and politics, McKibben is, by disposition, a non-fiction writer.

Radio Free Vermont is the sort of book that those of us feeling alienated and hopeless in the Age of Trump want to love. Its central character is Vern Barclay, a radio talk show host weaned on Paul Harvey. He’s not a Vermont native, but at age 72 his Green Mountain pedigree is longer than most. After all, there were fewer than 390,000 Vermont residents in 1960 and now the state is approaching two-thirds of a million. Through a series of unplanned (but not necessarily unwanted) circumstances, Barclay becomes a pirate podcast broadcaster, the leader of a secession movement, and a fugitive from justice. He is aided by OCD technical wiz Perry Alterson; Sylvia, a lesbian firefighter from Starksboro; Trace Harper, a lesbian and former Olympian gold medal biathlete; his acerbic 98-year-old mother; and a host of snowmobilers, cross-country skiers, and backwoods folks who share his view that Big Money is ruining the state’s  environment, character, and sense of community. On Ethan Allen Day* (January 21), Barclay launches a podcast campaign to have secession** placed on the March agenda of Town Meetings across the state—a half-jocular effort initially born out of frustration more than seriousness. As is transpires, it takes on a life of its own. 

The villains include Leslie R. Bruce, Vermont’s Trump-echo governor; the FBI; Walmart; and even some fellow Vermonters scared the secession would put an end to their Social Security checks, bank accounts, federal jobs, access to out-of-state goods, and pensions. In the post-9/11 world, Barclay is easy to package as a terrorist, and McKibben’s novel adopts a caper-and-chase structure punctuated with splashes of satire. Few other states have been as successful at creative-bordering-on-deceptive branding; that is, unless you think its hills truly are alive with shade-grown coffee beans, salsa fixings, cracker trees, and gin wells. McKibben gives this a gentle tweak by having Barclay open his broadcasts with plugs for real Vermont products, especially its craft beers. He also satirizes the promote-at-any-cost crowd by having feckless Governor Bruce build a retractable dome arena, which makes a nice foil for Barclay’s on-the-lam broadcasts that air under the tag line: “underground, underpowered, and “underfoot.”

To borrow the slogan from a very bad no-craft beer, Radio Free Vermont often tastes great, but it’s not terribly filling. Its climactic chase scene and Burlington showdown are absurd even for a fable, the dialogue and plot devices fall on the contrived end of the scale, and those who know Vermont will tell you that it’s not nearly as tolerant and PC as McKibben would have it. To pick one example, I suspect that most of its residents couldn’t even name a Nina Simone song, let alone choose her “O-o-h Child” as their national anthem. Naomi Klein (charitably) links Radio Free Vermont to stories from A Prairie Home Companion. I agree that it has the same sweet intentions, but McKibben is no Garrison Keillor when it comes to literary prowess. We don’t need him to be this; he’s a champion at what he does best: investigative journalism and environmental advocacy. Radio Free Vermont will certainly entertain you and it’s a welcome diversion from the 24/7 bad news coming out of Washington. Read it, but don’t expect McKibben’s insights into the Green Mountain State to be as sharp as what he has to say about green energy.

   Rob Weir

*McKibben is more romantic about Ethan Allen than I. Allen’s  role in the Revolutionary War and the Republic of Vermont is secure, but he was also rash, reckless, a self-promoter and a land speculator. 

**McKibben isn’t being entirely fanciful in imagining an independent Vermont. It was independent immediately after the revolutionary War and, in the 1970s, some back-to-the-land hippies were involved in the “Free Vermont” movement. There is also a small contemporary group the advocates a “Second Vermont Republic.” 

  

Loving Vincent a Visual Delight

LOVING VINCENT (20170

Directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman

Good Deed Entertainment, 94 minutes, PG-13

★★★★

Loving Vincent is an artistic triumph wrapped in a film that promises more than it delivers. If you've not heard, visually it's one of the most astonishing films since Peter Greenway's Prospero's Books (1991) and takes us well beyond the stop-motion animation of Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001). Actors and backdrops were filmed and then a team of artists—variously reported as 100 to 125—painstakingly hand-painted 65,000 frames. The wow factor doesn't end there, as the film's namesake subject is Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90) and the directors, editors, and art department proceed to bring his paintings to life. If you know Van Gogh's famed portraits of postman Joseph Roulin, imagine the thrill of having him lean into the green table to his left and begin a conversation. Now imagine that other characters also come to life and make their way through dynamic moving tableaux. Chances are good you'll see some your favorite Van Gogh images, given that he produced an astonishing 800 paintings in his brief life. The overall effect is as if hand-drawn anime courted and married high art.

The challenge, though, is to make all of this into a coherent narrative rather than a clever flipbook. On that score, Loving Vincent is more mundane. The visuals are stitched together by supposing that in 1891, one year after Vincent's death, Postmaster Roulin (Chris O'Dowd) comes into the possession of a letter from Vincent (Robert Gulaczyk) addressed to his brother Theo. Problem: Theo died just six months after his brother, so to whom should the letter be delivered? Roulin's first thought is to place it in the hands of his last caregiver, Dr. Paul Gatchet (Jerome Flynn) who treated Vincent after he left the lunatic asylum in Saint-Rémy, and Roulin entrusts his dilettante son Armand (Douglas Booth) with traveling to Auveres-sur-Oise to give Gatchet the letter. You know Armand too—he's the cocksure popinjay in the bright yellow jacket and louche hat who was also a favored Van Gogh subject. Armand arrives to a land of gossip, innuendo, jealousy, and simmering rivalries that raise doubts about Vincent's suicide. What if something more sinister occurred? In his investigations, Armand encounters figures you can also find in a quick Google Images search: a boatman (Adam Turner), an innkeeper's daughter (Eleanor Thompson), art supplier Pere Tanguay (John Sessions), police lieutenant Milliet (Robin Hedges), Doctor Gatchet's daughter Marguerite (Saorise Ronan), and others.

It's an intriguing idea—except none of this really happened and the contrivance is stretched, even at just 94 minutes. Thus the film's reveal seems more like surrender than a conclusion. This is a British/Polish coproduction and at times it feels uncertain in ways that go beyond the fact that the actor's accents jar the narrative—Irish, various parts of England, Central Europe…. I suppose we can we thankful that none tried to pass as faux French, but the lack of any sort of lingua franca doesn't help engross us in an already a thin mystery.

That said, this movie is such a dazzling artistic achievement that you should see it even if the accents make you want to take a straight razor to an ear. The frenetic and constant movement of the lush imagery assures that you cannot be bored, plus there's the pleasure of seeing how many Van Gogh paintings you can identify. Loving Vincent is so creative that I am willing to forgive everything except what was done to Don McLean's song "Starry Starry Night." Instead of rolling the credits to McLean's masterful original, we get a lame cover from generic British pop/soul artist Lianne La Havas. Good grief! That's like putting vinyl siding on the Terrace Café.  

Rob Weir 

New Book on Sports Legends in Time for the World Series

Legends Never Die: Athletes and Their Afterlives in Modern America. By Richard Ian Kimball. Syracuse University Press, 2017. 

This review originally appeared in NEPCA News. 

On July 4, 1939, New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig bade farewell in a speech that has found its way into the pantheon of American history's most famous orations. When Gehrig told a Yankee Stadium crowd of 61,808 that he considered himself "the luckiest man on the face of the earth," there was nary a dry eye to be seen. All knew that Gehrig was stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which robbed him of his strength and life before he reached his 38^th birthday.

In a sense, argues Brigham Young University history professor Richard Ian Kimball, Gehrig was indeed lucky; he became a forever-young immortal. Kimball's is a study of how American culture canonizes athletes who die in the bloom of life. In a deft introduction, Kimball places sports stars that flamed out early within a grander sweep of Western luminaries, including Achilles, Pheidippides, battlefield soldiers, John F. Kennedy, and Princess Diana. He invokes A. E. Housman's 1896 poem "To an Athlete Dying Young" to affirm journalist Simon Barnes' observation that "only the unfinished is perfect" (3). In Kimball's words, "The black hole of unfulfilled potential magnifies the energy in the universe of memory" (4). Young athletes who perish tap into collective mourning rites as few others do. 

Kimball is perhaps hyperbolic to claim that sports deaths help Americans cope with their own mortality, but he is correct to assert that such passings are imbued with public significance. He illuminates this through selected case studies, beginning with the only athlete whose early death rivals Gehrig's in the public imaginary: Notre Dame football star George Gipp. If you have any doubt that sports matter, consider how Gipp's 1920 parting subsequently advanced the careers of his coach, Knute Rockne, and the man who played "The Gipper" in a 1940 Hollywood film: Ronald Reagan.

Kimball packs a lot into just 144 pages of text, with each figure standing as synecdoches for American society. The deaths of rodeo stars Bonnie McCarroll (1929) and Lane Frost (1989) hardened gender roles, with McCarroll's tragic bronco ride leading to enduring limitations on events open to women, and Lane's demise reinforcing perceptions of male toughness. Call it the difference between tragic victimhood and brave martyrdom. The sexual spin-off of this is the 1962 death of boxer Benny Paret at the hands of welterweight Emile Griffith. Many date the decline of boxing's popularity from this public death, but a greater irony lies with the savagery of Griffith's blows after Paret uttered a homophobic slur. Griffith was a known bisexual. That such an individual was compelled to preserve his manhood with such bloodlust speaks volumes. NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt represents the other end of public morality scale. Kimball whimsically references him as "Princess Diana with a push broom mustache" (100), but his death at the 2001 Daytona 500 took on redemptive meanings for numerous evangelical Christians, complete with perceived miracles. Earnhardt's death also provided a template for the phenomenon of "cybermourning" (10) in the emerging electronics age. Kimball connects each athlete to popular culture; after all, mourning remains mostly private unless print, film, television, music, or cyberspace universalizes and memorializes loss.

Kimball concludes with a look at three baseball legends that were not "lucky" enough to die young: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and Ted Williams. Each lived long enough for revisionists to tarnish their images. DiMaggio's persona as a suave sophisticate gave way to stories of his jealousy, money obsession, and egoism. Mantle's once hidden vices such as his alcoholism and womanizing became public knowledge. It's hard to imagine a sadder exit than that of Williams, who was already viewed as a misanthrope. But that is inconsequential in comparison to the family squabble that led to Williams being cryogenically frozen after death, his body in one tube, his severed and battered head in another. One might argue that Mantle is out of place in this chapter, as before his death he did public penance for his misdeeds and is now invoked as a cautionary tale—a new life for an old legend. But such a quibble hardly diminishes Kimball's larger point that athletes who outlive their fame are heroes for a season, whereas those taken prematurely are immortals.

Legends Never Die is a natural for undergraduate classes given its brevity and its easy-to-digest prose. It would work quite well in a sports history course, but also in classes focusing on aspects of American culture such as celebrity and fandom studies, identity politics, folklore, civic religion, and explorations of death and dying.  

Robert E. Weir

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The Wailin' Jennys: First New Release in Six years

THE WAILIN' JENNYS

Fifteen

Red House Records #305

★★★★

In Greek mythology the Sirens were dangerous creatures whose mellifluous voices lured sailors into treacherous waters where their boats were dashed upon the reefs. Odysseus stopped the ears of his crew with wax and had himself lashed to the mast just so he could hear them. Good thing he did, as he thrashed, howled, and screamed in madness at the sheer beauty of their tones. The Wailin' Jennys are a real-life equivalent of such vocal enticement. Luckily for us, their intentions are benign.

Fifteen is the Jennys' first album in six years—released just in time to honor the fifteen-year partnership between Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody, and Heather Masse.  When you have such lovely voices and know how to harmonize them, there's no sense in competing with them. The instrumentation is wisely kept at a minimum (if there is any at all) so that we might savor every word and soaring note. Yet, somehow it feels rich, not spare. The traditional "Old Churchyard" is just vocals atop of viola drone and that's all we need. It's all about the song for the Wailin' Jennys and to that end, they perform covers rather than originals. These include Tom Petty's "Wildflowers," Dolly Parton's "Light of aClear Blue Morning," Emmylou Harris' "Boulder to Birmingham," Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart," and Jane Silberry's "The Valley." But even if you know the song, it will sound new because you will be forced to listen to glorious voices, with few or no competing instruments. To my ear, the only misfire is their rendition of Paul Simon's "Love Me Like a Rock," which is too pretty and lacks Simon's urbane and soulful hipster vibe. But let's not nitpick; a new Wailin' Jennys album is cause for celebration. Unlike the Greek sirens, the Jennys soothe, delight, and bear healing musical delights. Okay—they do one not-so-nice thing. There are only nine songs on Fifteen. I would have liked at least six more.

Rob Weir