cover art by Ryan Brady

The level of catharsis and convalescence in Fiona Dickinson’s music is astonishing.  You can feel her voice pushing back the demons as she digs deep into a growl, and then angelically welcome in the healing process with the voice of tranquility.  While the subject matter and mood of her songs may carry a wistful and woebegone spirit, this is incredibly warm and inviting sonance that lives and breathes to understand and rebuild once the exorcism is complete.

Her 2011 debut, Duende, set to be released on Strutt Records on Friday, January 14 at (lo and behold!) The Strutt, is a collection of dark folk pieces that pack a riveting emotional punch.  The production, handled by Dickinson and Andy Catlin, wisely places her voice and acoustic guitar at the foreground of a multitude of other sounds, including violin and backing vocals from Samantha Cooper on several cuts and a cornucopia of instrumentation from Dickinson and Catlin throughout, though almost no percussion.  In keeping the majority of the tracks focused on the waves of her guitar/vocal interplay, the creators have ensured that solo performances will not pale in comparison to the record.  Still, the ornamentation provided is quite effective.

We are ushered into the disquieted land with a brief ambient “Intro” that segues into “My Lovely Friend”, a gorgeous number that finds its narrator in dire straits.  A choir of voices provided by a group of Dickinson’s friends adds an extra touch of meltdown intensity.
“Quiet With Others,” a lyrical oddity on the album as there are no self-references, displays the amount of feeling Dickinson can squeeze out of simplicity, using the main chord changes as several different hooks, some vocal, some instrumental, within the same song while not seeming repetitive.  The chorus, where Dickinson and Cooper harmonize the words “He croaked,” is a vocal eruption that is absolutely chilling in its strength.

The unhinged infidelity of “Stone Me” is one of the more stripped down, raw Fiona efforts found on this recording, with Catlin contributing some tasty guitar and organ.  The eerie terror of “Recalling Dreams,” where Dickinson’s voice sounds as if it’s on the verge of collapsing in ominous howling, is followed by the subdued “Sticks” where Samantha Cooper’s violin wraps around Dickinson’s guitar in a haunting interplay of sparse instrumentation.

The lyrical content grows even heavier and direct with the next few cuts.  “The Wall” includes the passage: “I heard a couple making love in the room next door/ The way she moaned reminded me of me a year ago/ When I loved a boy so dearly and we turned our beds into homes/Now that sound had no meaning so I pressed my ear into the wall”.  Highly effective ambient electronics and chaotic stringery on a cello further the frustration and longing innate to the piece.  Perhaps the most primal moment of the album occurs in “Do As I Please” where Dickinson begs “I said to her/ Please don’t do it/ Please don’t do those things to me/ And she said to me/ Yes, I’ll do it/ Yes, I’ll do as I please”.  These lines, authentically distraught, were recorded with Dickinson facing away from the mic, adding an almost-other dimension quality, like a lost soul trying to break through.  Ghostly voices swirling to and fro in the mix along with Catlin’s suspense/thriller piano arpeggios, layer upon layer of violin and cello swelling toward the end, and a shrieking vocal track recorded with Fiona’s head placed in a bathroom sink, put this track into a whole new category.

The mood lightens at this point. “Just Sleep,” a waltz of drunken, socially awkward indulgence, even includes a playful, comforting old-timey bridge. “Winter’s Coming” closes the show in glorious, across-the-plains optimism, even in the necessary departures we
must face in life.

Curiously, the two definitions found for the album title, Duende, are 1. a goblin, demon, spirit  2. charm, magnetism, soul.  Funny how Fiona Dickinson has achieved the latter by fighting off the former.

The entirety of ‘Duende’ can be heard in advance at: http://fionadickinson.bandcamp.com/

To be released Friday, January 14, 2011 at The Strutt in Kalamazoo, Michigan

Fiona Dickinson: Voice, Guitar, Cello, Violin, Bass, Piano, Flute, Bells, Percussion
Andy Catlin: Keyboard, Guitar, Piano, Reed Organ, Clarinet, Percussion
Samantha Cooper: Voice, Violin
Patrick Carroll: Guitar
Choir: Graham A. Parsons, Mike Savina, Patrick Carroll, Gitis Ezekiel Baggs, Adam Danis, Bennett Young and Drew Tyner

All songs written by Fiona Dickinson
Produced by Andy Catlin and Fiona Dickinson
Recorded by Andy Catlin at Strutt Records (Kzoo) and Chain O’ Lakes Campground (Bellaire, MI)
Mixed by Ben Lau, Andy Catlin and Fiona Dickinson
Mastered by Mark Larmee
Layout by John Stiger
Front cover by Ryan Brady ryanbradyillustration.blogspot.com
Struttrecords.com

The third release from Kalamazoo/Chicago-based label Already Dead Tapes is ‘Seconds’ from Problems That Fix Themselves, the focus of former Kalamazoo resident and Rotten Wood Moon member Joshua Tabbia, who recently migrated to Chicago.

“Seconds” finds Tabbia (with a little help from Tori Blade and Grow Fangs’ Ray Jackson) exploring a wide palette of sound in the electronic/noise territory, but that double-description unto itself does not do justice to this widely varied release.  The instrumentation ranges from synths, samples, and static to acoustic guitars, something that sounds like accordion and maybe a melodica (if they aren’t organ or keyboard imitation), recurring pieces of an oddly-phrased man doing spoken word and even bits of Conway Twitty songs.  More often than not, there is a beat, groove, pulse or melody to latch onto, maintaining enough hooks amidst the madness to encourage even somewhat-sensitive ears to come back for repeated listens and find more to behold in the less-accessible sections.

The album begins with a peacefully sparse, subdued lullaby sang by Tori Blade entitled “Noelle”, a complete surprise to me upon first listening. It’s a wonderful album opener and, despite the reappearance of Blade’s singing toward the end of the tape and a reprise of the melody to “Noelle,” this is definitely an anomaly on ‘Seconds’. If this opening piece does nestle the listener into the cozy Land of Nod, their slumber shall quickly be disrupted by the jagged edges of sonic shrapnel which follow.

Despite the abrasive tone of much of the sound found on ‘Seconds’, it should be noted that little-to-none of it feels aggressive or, more specifically, violent.  This is FUN noise, colorful and inviting.  Even “Gone,” which ends side one and is a bit eerie, is far from threatening.  Side two opener “Virginia Woolf” contains the random previously-mentioned Twitty bits bookending  the most industrial soundscape found on this release, falling very close to sounding like Nurse With Wound before the electro drum beat kicks in half-way through the piece.  This track can currently be heard at Problems website, http://www.problemsthatfixthemselves.com/

An exciting adventure that only gets better with repeated listens, this release shows a man (with a little help from his friends) on top of his game.

“I know not what they mean – tears from the depth of some divine despair – rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes – in looking on, and thinking of the days that are no more”

This slightly abbreviated quote from “The Princess” by the United Kingdom 1800s Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson graces the back cover of Inhalant’s “Bondage”, and seems to serve as the general theme of the record: the pull of love and the pain of the loss, obsession and control, and the fear of abandonment, or the feeling thereafter.

Recorded in Fall 2008 by C.A. Odom out of Vernon, Texas, “Bondage” was released earlier this year on Kalamazoo-based label SNSE and is the first vinyl release from the artist after years of cassette releases and compilation appearances. While the album begins abrasively, aside from a brief ethereal intro, gradually, with each track, the feeling shifts from an angry, domineering tone into what sounds reflective and thirsting as the pieces take on a more ambient, hypnotic, even rhythmic quality.  An airy piece called “Love Song” includes the lyrics “flesh, I love you so”, and was the first moment on the record that my roommate, who is no noise fan, exclaimed “that wasn’t bad”.

The record concludes with “Ghosts of Liberation,” the highlight of the record for me, as at this point the sound has evolved into a full-on pulsing, dark, destroyed electronics groove that could be the soundtrack to an alien metropolis in a sci-fi flick.  For those interested in exploring harsh noise but often find the full-on white noise attack a bit too grating to sustain time and time again, this record could be a gateway into hearing sound differently.