Rise & Shine

admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:24:00 +0000

Rise & Shine, the sophomore album by country duo Fanny Grace, is pleasant, well-produced, up tempo, contemporary country-rock with a postfeminist sensibility. Writer/producer/guitarist Paul Reeves and co-writer/lead singer Carmen Meja have turned out a collection of sassy-yet-vulnerable-women-in-pickups songs in the best Dixie Chicks tradition. John Carter Cash (son of the late country legends June Carter and Johnny Cash) produced the album, giving it an extra helping of country-roots cred. (In a nod to Cash’s heritage, the record includes the Johnny Cash-penned “My Cowboy’s Last Ride” and closes with the Carter family classic “The Storms are on the Ocean”)

Nearly all of the songs on the record are written from a female point of view, and the album is most interesting when it explores the thoughts and lives of modern working class women. “Soon Be Home,” the second track, starts off sounding like a standard post-breakup song, but with the mention of the “yellow ribbon on the trunk of my car” it becomes clear that we’re listening to the thoughts of a woman waiting for her man to return from an overseas deployment. In the rocker “Don’t Want it All,” which is maybe the most interesting song on the record, we enter the life of a cash-strapped woman who has to choose between buying a gallon of gas and a gallon of milk (a situation more and more of us have come to relate to in the past few months). The most interesting part of this song is that the flat broke narrator isn’t dreaming of a Stetson-wearing, truck driving Prince Charming to rescue her from counting change to buy groceries; she’s just doing her best to make it through.

None of the songs on this album are groundbreaking, musically or lyrically, and if Reeves and Meja haven’t been directly influenced by the Dixie Chicks (Meja doesn’t quite have Natalie Maines’s earthy sass or vocal range), they sure seem to be following them down the same dirt road, blasting the radio in their own rusty pickup. Still, it’s a pretty fun ride.

Written by: Rochelle Mabry, June 20th 2008

Nectar

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:18:00 +0000

By Natalia Clavier

ESL Music

There are some records that are meant for rocking out with all the windows down as you go flying down the highway, and others that are perfect background music for a chill, low-key evening with friends. Natalia Clavier’s Nectar is definitely in the latter category, and in a good way. In her solo debut, the native Argentinean infuses trip hop and lounge music with a distinctly Latina flavor to create the perfect soundtrack for a summer dinner party or margaritas-and-mojitos cocktail gathering.

Trip hop isn't often known for variation, and a number of the songs on Nectar are pretty similar in sound and feel. Many of the tracks, which were produced by Eric Hilton of Thievery Corporation, feature a similar laid back groove and ethereal vocals, and it’s difficult to tell one from the other on the first few listens. Still, the album includes enough twists and variations to keep it from becoming a wall of monotonous (if lovely) sound. “Azul” brings in echoes of the tango of Clavier’s homeland, and “Confusión” and “Mi mentira” trade in a little of the electronics for a return to “real” instruments like piano and guitar.

The lyrics on Nectar are sung (and printed) in Spanish, and since I don’t speak or read the language (and couldn’t find any translations), I can’t really comment on them. Despite the language barrier, however, Clavier’s voice creates a vivid emotional tone for each song - whether dancing over the beats of the more “chill” tracks or rising with passion on the classic Argentinean folk song “Tue que peudes vuélvete.” The vocals combine with the groove to create a cool, sensual record that’s perfect for easing into the heat of summer.

Written by: Rochelle Mabry, June 19th 2008