Speech Debelle, Freedom of Speech

In 2009, Speech Debelle's debut album, Speech Therapy, won Britain's Mercury Prize for best album of the year. Now Debelle is back with her second album Freedom of Speech. 

Where Debelle turned inwards on Speech Therapy, putting her personal life under a microscope, for a kind of self diagnosis, Freedom of Speech is squarely focused outwards. 

Speech Debelle, born Corynne Elliott, has been an outspoken advocate for environmental causes and women's rights, including gender equality in Britain and abroad. Over the past few years, Debelle has been involved with the User Voice campaign, an organization for supporting disadvantaged youth, Oxfam, the Hope Not Hate campaign, the Care campaign, and has served as an ambassador for UN women. Her work also includes writings, such as A Woman's Woman's Woman's World, written for the Godmothers Campaign. Now on Freedom of Speech, Debelle uses her artistry to advocate for all those that don't have public voices.  

Debelle has called Freedom of Speech a "sonic declaration of independent control over rhyme and reason" and a "celebration of female power and identity." The album is packed with stories and imagery as she takes on social and environmental injustices. She has said that the songs on Freedom of Speech are freer and less self-conscious. "I needed to express myself in a new way and this is where I am now."

In some places on the album, Debelle can be controversial, such as on the song Blaze Up A Fire. On it, she takes on urban rioting, such as the ones seen last summer in London, from the standpoint of the rioters. She has said that the song was not mean to condone their actions, but to attempt to be a voice of understanding for how they have come to such a place. Debelle wrote about the song, "People have asked why they are destroying buildings and property from their own communities but they look at them as just buildings that do not belong to them, and never will. Only people who cannot envision a positive future will take part in the destruction of their own community and if we acknowledge that, then we need to ask the question why somebody so young feels they have so little to look forward to? I cannot allow myself to de-humanize these kids and see them as my enemy."

Blaze Up A Fire  

I'm a big fan of Speech Debelle and I think that Freedom of Speech is step in the right direction for her as an artist and activist. With its thoughtful lyrics, rhythmic raps, great beats, and grooving music, this album is both thought provoking and entertaining, and one of my early favorites of the year.

I'm With It

ON ROTATION

Field Music, Plumb
XTC is one of my favorite bands of all time. There was so much to love and admire about the band's creative approach to making music. Every song and every album made you pay attention to what they were doing. Field Music, the brother act from Sutherland, England fall into a similar creative bucket as XTC and may just be the most interesting band, creatively speaking, in England right now. Listening to Plumb, I felt like I had been handed an invitation to go into the minds of these two musicians as they were conducting a grand experiment. As David and Peter Brewis play with every aspect of their music, timing, sound, space, and styles, I found myself engrossed in Plumb. And like with XTC, every song made me sit up and pay attention. 
                                                        A New Town 

Bahamas, Barchords
Last year I fell hard for Afie Jurvanan's debut album Pink Strat. So much so, that I had to track him down for an interview. Now Jurvanan, who records and performs under the name Bahamas, is back with Barchords, the follow up to that great album. It is another fine album that picks up where Pink Strat left off. Jurvanan's music has a relaxed and breezy way about it and the general mood of both albums reflects this. What separates Barchords from Pink Strat is the way in which Jurvanan stretches musically. His songs here have a bigger and richer sounds and Jurvanan shows us just a little bit more of his wonderful talent as a guitar player. 
Lost In The Light  

Chairlift, Something

The first time I listened to Something, all I really heard was what I perceived to be an '80's knock off album by bands like Ah-Ha. But on my second listen I was able to take the album on its own merits and found the pure joy of Something. Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimber, the duo behind Chairlift, definitely have a strong affinity for the synth pop from a few decades ago, but by paying it with respect, they are able to take the best of what that music represented and give it a contemporary twist. This album really charmed me and while it made me a bit nostalgic for the music of my youth, I chose to listen to Something one more time instead.  
Wrong Opinion   

Islands, A Sleep & A Forgetting
Islands wrote that their new album is "a bummer of a record, pretty much the whole way through. Do you like to commiserate over things that go sour in your life? Do you feel better when someone pours their heart out on wax? Cool." Nick Thorburn and the band were being a bit cheeky when they wrote this, but lifting the title of the album from a William Wordsworth poem, you know that there is seriousness behind them. Thorburn's lyrics, if read on their own, might actually take the wind out of your sail, but the beauty of this album is how he wraps them in music that is so warm and comforting, he makes you feel like everything is going to be just fine at the end of the day....and I can live with that.
                                                        This Is Not A Song  

Sounding Out: Laura Gibson

"I read this quote by a poet that said ‘all poetry is a love act.’ I really think that so much of what I do really comes from that space. I feel most able to write from this place of caring."

Many years before Laura Gibson was a songwriter and musician, she was a young girl living in the small isolated logging town of Coquille, Oregon. In this town, folks moved to the same rhythm, at least while the mills were running. When the whistles blew everyone knew what time it was. Time to work, time to break, time to go home. Laura wrote poetry, she participated in math competitions, and she sat beside her father with her mother and others from hospice when he was sick and dying from cancer.

While Laura has been shaped by her childhood, to say that it is the case is difficult without sounding cliché. We are all shaped by our pasts. But it would be wrong not to start with Laura’s past when talking about her music and writing. Working hard, grieving, feelings of isolation, sharing intimate moments, feeling the rhythms of the world around her, these are all things that Laura not only embraces but also explores in her music.  

Laura came to music later in her life. She actually did not pick up the guitar or start writing songs until she was half way through college.  Laura said that she started playing as a means to put words together in a different kind of a way.

“College is a place where I was first starting to look at and explore my place in the world. It was a time when I discovered that songwriting was a way to understand myself and understand the world. It was a revelation for me. And so I really had to catch up on guitar in order to get out these songs that I had in me. It was really a means of making songs.”

As a child, Laura had a love of putting words together and poetry helped Laura set her foundation for expressing all the thoughts and feelings running through her head. I asked Laura if she always wanted to share her thoughts and words with others or if this came later.

“I think that a part of it was there. I remember the first poem that I ever wrote. Everyone was writing letters to this little boy from my Sunday school class who was sick in the hospital with cancer. I wrote this this short little poem to him. His parents really loved the poem and they published it in a magazine and a newsletter. I just remember this feeling……that this was important to someone and that this had meaning outside of my own head. That really impacted me. I was somewhere around the age of 8.”

As Laura started writing songs in college, she said that there was a desire to share them with others as well. “Your putting words to something and putting music to something that you just can’t quite say in a normal communication. When I first started writing songs I dreamed about there being a listener because it is a way of saying what you can’t say. “

When Laura did finally begin share her songs with others, she did not choose to perform them in coffee shops or clubs. Instead she volunteered her time to sing and play at Our House Of Portland, a community that supports people with advanced HIV/AIDS. For Laura, she remembered all of the support that she and her mom received when her dad was so sick and she felt that this is where her time and music belonged.

“I read this quote by a poet that said ‘all poetry is a love act.’ I really think that so much of what I do really comes from that space and I feel most able to write from this place of caring. It may come in the form of grief, or in a form of frustration with injustice. But I think that there is a string of affection even when I am really not writing traditional love songs. I think of them as love songs, but not romantic in nature.”

That figurative space led Laura back home to an actual space, her childhood home, where she spent a month reading through love letters that her grandparents had written back and forth to one another. She had never met them, but during this quiet and isolated time with those letters, she felt that she grew to know her grandparents in an intimate way. These letters, her connection to them and to her grandparents, and the connection between her grandparents inspired her first album If You Come To Greet Me, which was released in 2006.

“When people ask me what I tend to feel inspired by, what I write about, human connection is always one of the themes of what I do.”

On her second album, Beasts Of Seasons, and on her new album La Grande, Laura’s songs continue to explore themes of caring and love, loss and grief, time and space. But a noticeable difference between the albums is the evolution and expansion of Laura’s sound.

With Beasts of Seasons, Laura’s intention was to ensure that her compositions remained delicate and personal. She said that she “wanted them to feel fleshed out but still feel true to the fact that you’re singing a song on an acoustic guitar.”

Now, on her third album, rhythm and volume play a larger role in helping deliver her stories. I told Laura that one could hear a bit of this evolution on the song Spirited from the Beasts Of Seasons album. I asked her how conscious she was in wanting to have this evolution. She said that Spirited was a really good song to bring up.

“When I first started to write that song I almost felt like it was so poppy and that it could not possibly be meaningful. I did not even think that it fit within the themes of the record, so I was hesitant to include that song initially.” But she said she realized that it was one of the most meaningful songs on that record.

“I learned from Spirited that I can still focus on the craft of writing and have meaning within the more upbeat moments. So this time around I really wanted to let go of that limitation that I had chosen for myself. What moves me in making and listening to music is that intimacy and vulnerability that happens. I got really interested in this kind of experiment of whether or not I could achieve that by exploring and indulging with my songwriting.”

Laura said that she has found that there is more than one way of achieving intimacy with a listener. In some respects, Laura felt that she was able to give more of herself and be even more vulnerable within her new songs even though it does not seem like a more vulnerable record.

No longer armed with simply an acoustic guitar, Laura approached her new album differently, working and writing from day one with two drummers as well as herself. Rhythm became the backbone of La Grande.

“Rhythm always had a place in my music. A lot of times songs would start with me and a guitar and I would let that set the rhythm. I am definitely not one to keep or require perfect time on my records. There are a lot of ebbs and flows as far as speed and rhythm. There is almost a breathing thing as far as how I approach how songs flow. This time around I was excited about percussion and having this real heart beat behind everything. Something that is a bit more driving to set the pace for what I do.”

Rhythm became so important to this album, that she even sings about the idea of rhythm in the opening song. “In the line of the song I was imagining this train coming through and rattling by and all of these whispered conversations being turned into music by the train coming by. I like thinking about this in the context of my own understanding of rhythm.”

Laura first started working on the new batch of songs for the album when she was visiting the Eastern Oregon Community of La Grande. She said that the town's geography, and history of wagons, courage, and moving forward resonated with her own sense of moving forward and asserting her being into the word. “I became really interested in the history of the La Grande area. It is a place that represents both the triumphs and tragedies of the American West.” She said the town and history helped give her clarity and confidence in terms of where she wants to go musically.

“So many times I have been to a place where I have felt the landscape and the culture was giving shape to something that I was feeling or wanting to understand. Going out to that place whose identity is very much about the idea of moving forward both in the positive transcendent ways and tragedy and grief that comes with moving forward really did that for me on this trip. I almost feel like I have these feelings welling up inside of me about where I wanted to go and what kind of musician I wanted to become.” La Grande, she said, gave her the images that she needed to help explain where she wanted to go.

I asked Laura what she meant when she talked about the tragedy and grief that comes with moving forward. She said that specifically, historically in the west there is a lot of tragedy with the native American population, including some specific to the areas in and around La Grande. 

"There was and is much to be grieved about that movement forward.  In my own life I feel like one of my gifts in a sense is to be a griever. I think that connects to the choices that I have made in my life and the songs that I write. I feel like that is a gift. But I was also interested in what does it mean to move forward and not be bound by grief, to try and transcend it in a way.”

With La Grande, Laura has arrived at a new musical level and space. Yet the essence of what makes her so special as an artist has not changed; her ability as a songwriter to share with you the world, as she experiences it, through her open heart and eyes. La Grande, with its heartbeat like rhythms and beautiful musical texturing, elevates this experience for the listener, creating imagery behind the words. This imagery not only enhances her stories, but works to draw the listener in closer. And in doing so, she continues to create the intimacy with her music that she will always seek out.

Laura is out touring in support of her album now. You can check out her tour dates here.

ON ROTATION

The 2 Bears and Gotye deliver albums that are hard to categorize, but a joy to listen to from beginning to end. 

The 2 Bears, Be Strong
Joe Gaddard and Raf Rundell are well known in and around London for their various music projects and bands. In 2009 they came together to create their latest project The 2 Bears. Hard to categorize or pin down musically, The 2 Bears' are all about creating  dance music which draws from many musical styles including 2-step, hip-hop, pop, rock, soul, and just about any other you can think of. Trying to shove so much within a single album can be risky business, but Gaddard and Rundell are so talented and sure footed, that the resulting effort is not only successful, but really very cool. Be Strong is a fun and high energy album which I enjoyed from beginning to end. 
Work  

Gotye, Making Mirrors

Already a wildly popular album overseas, Gotye's Making Mirrors finally saw its US release last week. With the song Somebody That I Used To Know already finding its way to the top of many playing rotations on the radio and on line, Making Mirrors' popularity should only grow here as well. Gotye, the brand child and creation of Australia's Wouter De Backer, is more or less a one-man-band. A multi-instrumentalist who is armed with talent and spot on pop-sensibilities, De Backer roams boundary free, crafting memorable songs in his own unique way. Making Mirrors is an album packed full of great songs that are very catchy and also quite interesting to listen to at every turn.
Somebody That I Used To Know   

ON ROTATION

It is hard to believe that we are at the end of January and I have not offered up any Picks Of The Week this month. It is not for a lack of listening. Honestly, I have just not found a lot of new music to get get me excited so far this year. Fortunately, it appears that the tides are turning. New albums by First Aid Kit, Polica, Foxy Shazam, and Hospitality are great listens to bring in the new year!

First Aid Kit, The Lion's Roar
The Lion's Roar, the sophomore release by sisters Johanna & Klara Söderberg, was the first album to really grab me this year. Hailing from Stockholm, Johanna & Klara, at the ripe old ages of 22 and 19, are making some seriously good americana music. Listening to The Lion's Roar, I was repeatedly taken by the warmth and beauty of the vocal harmonies achieved by them. There is also such an authenticity to what First Aid Kit is doing here musically that I had to keep reminding myself they were from Sweden and not from the heartland of America. They are a great reminder that this wonderful style of music belongs to everyone. The Lion's Roar is a great way to kick off your 2012 musical collection.
                                                        Emmylou  

Polica, Give You The Ghost

Minneapolis based Polica is set to release their debut album, Give You The Ghost on Feb. 14th. An electro-synth, pop album that lives a bit on the dark side, Give You The Ghost is one of the more confident debut albums that I have heard in some time. The album, which is just a pleasure to listen to from a musical standpoint, really shines as a result of its unique aesthetics. The band applies a very cool texturing effect to both lead singer Channey Leaneagh's beautiful vocals, and the music itself. The result gives these songs an unusual combination of warmth and intimacy but also remoteness, making these songs feel a bit other-worldly. Holding the songs together and pushing them along is a tight and driving bass and drum combo that I could sit down and listen to 
                                                       alone all day. All of these elements together make Give You The
                                                       Ghost something worthy of exploring upon its release.
                                                        Lay Your Cards Out   

Foxy Shazam, The Church Of Rock And Roll
Cincinnati based Foxy Shazam may or may not be the most electrifying rock band to inhabit the planet for the past seven years, as they self proclaim. But I agree with them that they have unleashed one grandiose album on the world with The Church Of Rock And Roll. A band that takes a page or two from Queen, Meatloaf, Pat Benatar and handful of other rockers from the late 70's and early 80's who knew how to inject a little glam and theatrics into their music, Foxy Shazam are out to have fun with big, bombastic, and over-the-top music. There is nothing subtle, tempered, or reserved about the band's music, and for this I am very greatful. I totally loved every minute of The 
                                                       Church Of Rock And Roll and you will to. 
                                                       Welcome To The Church Of Rock And Roll  

Hospitality, Hospitality
Hospitality describe their self-titled release as an exploration of Youth, New York, and the bittersweet commingling of past and present. Listening to Hospitality, I appreciated the storytelling. But what I really enjoyed was the way the band wraps their lyrics in music that is light filled and full of pop. But none of these songs would be as successful were it not for the warm, inviting, and at times quirky voice of singer Amber Papini. Papini finds just the right notes to bridge the band's lyrics and music in a wonderful way, giving these songs lots of heart.  
Eighth Avenue 

Not Ready To Leave 2011 Yet!

Every year around the Holidays, when I have some extra time to spare, I go on a bit of a quest to find and explore music that I may have missed throughout the year. It is a fun time for me and I am always excited about the prospect of finding one more great album. This year I was really pleased to not only find one, but two. 

Jonathan Wilson, Gentle Spirit 
On Jonathan Wilson’s website, his bio states that Wilson is resolutely committed to “old school” musical values and that his music is steeped equally in the woodsy contours of his North Carolina Blue Ridge experiences and the atmospheric guitar reveries of Neil Young and Quicksilver Messenger Service. After listening to Wilson’s debut album I could not agree more. 

Gentle Spirit is a wonderful album that completely exudes the groove and warmth that reflects what Wilson describes as “that golden late ‘60s, early ‘70s period when rural and urban sensibilities colluded in producing some of rock’s most imperishable recordings.”

As a “longtime student” of Los Angles’ Laurel Canyon, it’s musical heritage, and its “Canyon Culture”, Wilson wanted his musical ideas to “echo many of an earlier generation.” Slow burning, mellow,and laidback, Gentle Spirit really does carry you off to another time and place and holds you there through 13 songs that span close to an hour and 20 minutes. 

I loved this album and know that I will be listening to it for a very long time to come. 

Desert Raven  



Ólafur Arnalds, Living Room Songs 
Icelandic composer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Ólafur Arnalds set out to create and release one song a day, for a week, back in October. As he explains on his website, the songs were recorded and filmed live in the living room of his Reykjavik apartment and released instantly. This was an ambitious undertaking and the results are breathtaking. 

Arnalds is a wonderful composer who beautifully blends neo-classical and electronica music. On Living Room Songs, he creates a quiet, warm, subtle, and heartfelt space where the intimacy of setting can be sensed within each one of the seven recordings. I love the way the sparse instrumentation seems to float in the air, enveloping the listener and carrying them along on this brief, but gorgeous journey.

I highly encourage you to listen to Living Room Songs and then go explore Arnolds' other works. You will not be disappointed. 

Fyrsta