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| Track list: 1. Your Fonder Heart 2. Of a Friday Night 3. Namesake 4. Shenandoah 5. Changer 6. Song of the Magi 7. Santa Fe Dream 8. Hobo's Lullaby 9. Old-Fashioned Hat 10. Hades & Persephone 11. Out of Pawn Running time: 39 minutes Released: 2007 |
This isn't out-of-order, but filling a hole. I picked this album up in the last few days when slightly tipsy, after Mitchell's Young Man In America (my favourite track of hers that I have heard) came on and reminded me that I didn't have everything else.
Bright is a good adjective to describe the sound of the opening guitar. Clean and bold picked tones. My initial impression is that this is a lot more raw, unpolished, than what I have heard of Mitchell before but I do wonder whether that is confirmation bias: I know this is really early stuff. Her distinctive voice is there, but it isn't comfortable. At moments on Your Fonder Heart she is straining to the point of the sound going - as if she hadn't found her range or learned to compose around it yet. As the tune ends I find myself thinking of Jewel for some reason, a little sound, the choice of how to end the song or something like that.
The second tune ditches the guitar for a piano. I am not sure if this works or not. It puts me in mind of performers whose names linger just outside of my consciousness. This song is... I want to say amateur; like a house performer who would never get a recording deal. I wonder if it is padding. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice touches, but it just feels one step removed from a salable product. I wonder if, when you have a rather different voice, raw is not the draw it can be for more accessible performers. Here the edge, the tones sometimes leave the impression that Mitchell cannot sing, which is an uncharitable reading but an understandable one. Without the production to take her voice and wrap it, care for it, and present it she comes across a little like a bad talent show contestant. I don't think, if I didn't know how good she can be, that I would find much in here to like - the kind of performances that I might scoff at in a support act. As it is, I find myself getting drawn more to the tunes than to the singing, which is a pity.
There are signs though. Changer works her voice in a more appropriate way; here it has character, depth and the draw that parallels what I know she has gone on to do since. I really like this little number. Not so the next. It's not a bad tune, not badly sung, but the subject. It could be a Christmas carol, but for the tone.
Thankfully that is a brief misstep. The next tune is a really nice, laid back number - though I have to pause in the middle then restart because my physical copy of the album and the digital auto-rip version don't match. The physical turns out to be correct. For some reason the download had tracks 7 and 8 reversed - though the subject of the song in track 7 really fits with the name for track 8 too - it is the track length, printed on the rear sleeve, that confirms the error. I really don't mind the excuse to restart though, as the relaxed tone of Santa Fe Dream is, well... dreamy. Of course, the mix up would have been obvious from the first line of Hobo's Lullaby but there we go.
This album is a mixed bag. From how well the songs fit her voice, to how confidently they are presented, to the kinds of arrangements used. Ups and downs all the way. I find myself more drawn to the noodly guitar numbers, the sort that you could imagine being you or your friend piddling about in the corner on a lazy evening in. It is, incidentally, not a lazy evening right now - but a bright late morning. I am out to lunch soon. April has thus far been great weather-wise but turbulent in other ways. These more laid back wandering and simple tunes feel like a pause, a chance to catch my breath.
Hades & Persephone harks forward to Hadestown, though I am (only lightly) surprised to find the song is not repeated on that album. This is more a third person perspective though, which might have something to do with it... or not, there are several "I"s here. Ideas germinating for 3 years and more... I can relate to that in some ways. Ideas can be hard to come by; ideas can be hard to work up; ideas can be hard to present in just that right way.
Overall I come out of the album more positive about it than I felt early on in the listen. Maybe I adjusted to the mixture, maybe the later songs are stronger. I'll go with the latter. Another point worth mentioning is that I have later versions of some of these tracks on Xoa - final track Out of Pawn being an example - and it is possible that familiarity contributes too. This was otherwise my first listen to any of the tracks on The Brightness. A mixed bag, then - but more positive than not, and enough so that I want to give the weaker tracks a second chance.
Bright is a good adjective to describe the sound of the opening guitar. Clean and bold picked tones. My initial impression is that this is a lot more raw, unpolished, than what I have heard of Mitchell before but I do wonder whether that is confirmation bias: I know this is really early stuff. Her distinctive voice is there, but it isn't comfortable. At moments on Your Fonder Heart she is straining to the point of the sound going - as if she hadn't found her range or learned to compose around it yet. As the tune ends I find myself thinking of Jewel for some reason, a little sound, the choice of how to end the song or something like that.
The second tune ditches the guitar for a piano. I am not sure if this works or not. It puts me in mind of performers whose names linger just outside of my consciousness. This song is... I want to say amateur; like a house performer who would never get a recording deal. I wonder if it is padding. Don't get me wrong, there are some nice touches, but it just feels one step removed from a salable product. I wonder if, when you have a rather different voice, raw is not the draw it can be for more accessible performers. Here the edge, the tones sometimes leave the impression that Mitchell cannot sing, which is an uncharitable reading but an understandable one. Without the production to take her voice and wrap it, care for it, and present it she comes across a little like a bad talent show contestant. I don't think, if I didn't know how good she can be, that I would find much in here to like - the kind of performances that I might scoff at in a support act. As it is, I find myself getting drawn more to the tunes than to the singing, which is a pity.
There are signs though. Changer works her voice in a more appropriate way; here it has character, depth and the draw that parallels what I know she has gone on to do since. I really like this little number. Not so the next. It's not a bad tune, not badly sung, but the subject. It could be a Christmas carol, but for the tone.
Thankfully that is a brief misstep. The next tune is a really nice, laid back number - though I have to pause in the middle then restart because my physical copy of the album and the digital auto-rip version don't match. The physical turns out to be correct. For some reason the download had tracks 7 and 8 reversed - though the subject of the song in track 7 really fits with the name for track 8 too - it is the track length, printed on the rear sleeve, that confirms the error. I really don't mind the excuse to restart though, as the relaxed tone of Santa Fe Dream is, well... dreamy. Of course, the mix up would have been obvious from the first line of Hobo's Lullaby but there we go.
This album is a mixed bag. From how well the songs fit her voice, to how confidently they are presented, to the kinds of arrangements used. Ups and downs all the way. I find myself more drawn to the noodly guitar numbers, the sort that you could imagine being you or your friend piddling about in the corner on a lazy evening in. It is, incidentally, not a lazy evening right now - but a bright late morning. I am out to lunch soon. April has thus far been great weather-wise but turbulent in other ways. These more laid back wandering and simple tunes feel like a pause, a chance to catch my breath.
Hades & Persephone harks forward to Hadestown, though I am (only lightly) surprised to find the song is not repeated on that album. This is more a third person perspective though, which might have something to do with it... or not, there are several "I"s here. Ideas germinating for 3 years and more... I can relate to that in some ways. Ideas can be hard to come by; ideas can be hard to work up; ideas can be hard to present in just that right way.
Overall I come out of the album more positive about it than I felt early on in the listen. Maybe I adjusted to the mixture, maybe the later songs are stronger. I'll go with the latter. Another point worth mentioning is that I have later versions of some of these tracks on Xoa - final track Out of Pawn being an example - and it is possible that familiarity contributes too. This was otherwise my first listen to any of the tracks on The Brightness. A mixed bag, then - but more positive than not, and enough so that I want to give the weaker tracks a second chance.
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