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(2022) Marisa Anderson - Still, Here
Review:
There is a certain buoyancy to Marisa Anderson’s 2018 Cloud Corner, including a truly uplifting title track and the gorgeous Sun Song. For Still, Here, an album four years in the making, meaning it has passed through some of the most significant events in recent history, the mood is initially sombre.In Dark Water evokes anxiety by combining knotty fingerpicked lines with fragments of slide and the subtlest synthesised drone and piano notes hovering in the background. The Low Country sees a strummed guitar underpin melancholy electric lines that briefly bring to mind Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Hold on to Yourself intro. Running between the two is The Fire This Time, the most immediately powerful song of the set and one of the more heavy hitting of Marisa’s catalogue. Written on the day of the riots after the death of George Floyd, the piece uses an ominous picked line to frame low penduluming slide notes to paint a picture of horror. Like her Lament from Cloud Corner, this is a startling example of how emotive Marisa’s guitar work and song structure can be. It concludes a serious first third, but one that is musically beautiful and the most starkly stirring sound she has produced. The mid-section allows the light in, with requinto piece Night Air leading into nylon string guitar song Waking. The quick decay of the notes from the nylon strings immediately allows for more space in the music, which brings a lightness to the sound that nicely contrasts the first three songs. If the sharp piano notes and brushes of electric guitar that eventually steal ahead of the requinto tune on Night Air add eeriness to an initial feeling of tranquillity, then the calm and patient solo picking of Waking is pure innocence with no sinister overtones. The Crack where the Light gets In is similar in mood, with a merry acoustic line joined by electric keys to create an air of quiet optimism. Marisa once said that her music’s tempo follows the pace of footsteps (herself being a life-long walker) or the beating of a heart. Still, Here feels very much alive; while being patient and considered throughout, it feels like a big and important album in this inimitable player’s career and fits a range of moods and emotions into its modest eight tracks and thirty-four minutes. Like the closing song Beat the Drum Slowly neatly demonstrates, there is drama and darkness here, but also optimism. The overall impression is that of a powerful and thought-provoking album of beauty and profundity. — folk radio
Track List:
01 - In Dark Water
02 - The Fire This Time
03 - The Low Country
04 - Night Air
05 - Waking
06 - The Crack Where the Light Gets In
07 - La Llorona
08 - Beat the Drum Slowly
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk
Country: Portland, Oregon, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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