From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V10 #143 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Sunday, July 19 2009 Volume 10 : Number 143 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Folkwax review [Janet Cinelli ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:00:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Janet Cinelli Subject: [RS] Folkwax review Not sure if anyone's posted this yet. There's one part I didn't understand: "nearly all of the songs on this album contain at least one familiar phrase lifted from the Catholic mass." I will have to back for another listen and check that out. Janet Stretching The Boundaries of Conventional Reality, (07/16/09) Richard Shindell is one of the acknowledged masters of the contemporary Folk world. He got to that position by turning out consistently wise, beautiful, and interesting songs and committing himself to a packed tour schedule. This is not to say that he is prolific. Not Far Now is Shindell's first album of original songs in five years and many of the pieces have long been part of his live set. The translation from the solo guitar of his live show to the richly produced layers of the studio album is surprisingly subtle. Strings, percussion, and touches of harmony vocal are added with such delicacy and nuance that the songs on this album feel just as intimate as in the live setting. Richard Shindell carries around him an aura of solemnity that is softened by his basic kindness and sense of humor, but there is no escaping his underlying vision of pervasive sadness, pity and tenderness. The dominant instrumentation of guitar, bowed strings, and bouzouki on Not Far Now is perfectly suited to the mood. He claims of this collection that it is his most cinematic to date and emphasizes that the moments captured in the lyrics should be recognized as fragments of a much larger story. As if to emphasize the point, many of the songs end on unresolved chords. Those uncertain endings are just one way that Shindell requires an above-average sophistication from his listeners. For the past several years he has lived in South America in the homeland of Borges, and more broadly Garcia Marquez and Isabelle Allende. The land that called forth surrealist stories and magical realism seems to have had a similar effect on Shindell's work. The opening cut on the album, "Parasol Ants," has us watching a petty criminal lying on the pavement, apparently dead, but observing the light play on a tiny parade of ants carrying bits of green leaf on their backs. Though downed, captured, and finished, the low-life criminal becomes God, his breath a gale within the world of the ants. To capture the breadth of truth as he sees it, Shindell's lyrics stretch the boundaries of conventional reality. He continues in this vein in his second song, "A Juggler Out in Traffic," creating a Fellini-esque scene with a street performer doing his best, over years perhaps, to capture the attention of a particular passerby who finally drives out of town never having taken notice. The sad tune is perfectly lovely and melancholy, quietly desperate, again unresolved. This continues throughout the album, with a runaway deciding to deny concord to her mourning parents ("Bye Bye"); with a Spanish language song ("?Que Ago Ahora?") that tells of a man who finally finds human companionship, only thereby to lose his connection to the moon and stray dogs and pigeons who were once his sole comfort (I hope I got that about right. My Spanish-English translation skills are just shy of rudimentary). These are songs for lovers of poetry and art and literature. It is not the Folk music of Pete Seeger or Holly Near, though certainly these camps are not, thank heavens, mutually exclusive. In fact, I'll admit that Shindell does have his overtly political moments, represented in this collection in an audience favorite, "State of the Union." Here he pairs a clear narrative and a deliciously rolling melody to compare the plight of a heroin addict with the national addiction to oil and the perpetual, violent pursuit thereof. "Get right. Get free. Get rid of the junk." That's as close as he gets to anthem. It's worth mentioning another salient characteristic of Shindell's work: though it has been many years since he lived in a religious community, nearly all of the songs on this album contain at least one familiar phrase lifted from the Catholic mass. For those who might take this as a red flag, rest assured that Shindell's religious voice is purely poetic and timeless, and references none of the Church's more contemporary political stands. This album is so rich that it's tempting to go on far too long in analyzing it. If you decide to give it a try (and you should, because Shindell is important to modern Folk music) and don't find yourself falling in love, allow me to suggest that you go see Richard Shindell perform live, and let him be your tour guide. Or accept the songs as good poems that leave you room to fill in the loose weaves with your own threads of understanding. And do appreciate this: Shindell can find his way into the whole expanse of the universe through any tiny, unlikely portal. He is simply giving us a glimpse of what he has discovered. Never prescriptive or example setting, his are songs are art for art's sake. Sarah Craig is a contributing writer at FolkWax. Sarah may be contacted at folkwax@visnat.com. ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V10 #143 ************************************