Laura Veirs - July Flame
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CD Details
Artist: Laura VeirsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
CD Release Date: 2010-01-12
Music Label: Raven Marching Band Records
Soundtracks:
- I Can See Your Tracks
- July Flame
- Sun is King
- Where Are You Driving?
- Life is Good Blues
- Silo Song
- Little Deschutes
- Summer is the Champion
- When You Give Your Heart
- Sleeper In the Valley
- Wide-Eyed, Legless
- Carol Kaye
- Make Something Good
Music reviews of July Flame
Music Review: "Emerald Fields from Steer Manure"
Rating: 5 Stars
It's almost painful, how beautiful this new Laura Veirs CD is. With six albums now, and an EP (there was another, self-released title as well, currently out of print), it has become clear to me that the woman is not capable of creating anything less than captivating ... and she keeps getting better. JULY FLAME instantly became my favorite with the very first listen!
Now, for some, Laura Veirs' flat, girlish voice will be an acquired taste. It was for me; my initial exposure was her Carbon Glacier, a CD I bought based purely on reviews. I would not have given two cents for her singing ability - at first. But the songs crept under my skin, their organic yet chilly tones haunting me for weeks until I had to hear more. I ended up getting all of the Veirs' recordings I could get my hands on, and each one I picked up was a keeper.
The main reason, of course, given Laura's somewhat expressionless voice, is the quality of the songs, and the creativity of both her lyrics and the arrangements. On JULY FLAME, she has stripped back some of the heavy layers and most of the electronics of her last two albums, Year of Meteors and Saltbreakers, but this doesn't mean she has abandoned complexity. These songs are all intricate little symphonies with melodies that take unexpected turns and words that unfold like the pages of a book I can't put down. Veirs continues to use the natural world and the cosmos as the primary sources for her imagery, but she uses them to paint lovely portraits of people, herself, and of pure emotions. Her poetry can be challenging, using odd things like "steer manure" and a "stampeding buffalo" to describe impulses of the heart and spirit; stuff like "iron filings" and an "organ pipe" that one would not expect to find in a song lyric, and weaving it all into utterly gorgeous, dream-like stories of love, work, survival and death. One song, about a soldier killed in battle, is drawn from Rimbaud, and sits along side the rest of Veirs' wholly original poetry quite naturally. She lets the images do the talking, never preaching or lecturing, yet delivering potent messages just the same.
The instrumentation all through JULY FLAME is constantly interesting, with Laura's fine guitar and banjo playing, Eyvind Kang's viola, Steve Moore's keyboards, and Karl Blau's harmony vocals providing most of the base. Other instruments like saxophones, vibes, a thumb piano, clarinet, keyboards, upright bass, percussion, even a string quartet, are added here and there, but the overall sound is uncluttered and clean. This set is so excellent throughout, that it's hard to pick the best songs, but the standouts for me are "Sun is King," "I Can See Your Tracks," "Life Is Good Blues," "Silo Song," "Little Deschutes," "Summer Is The Champion," and the aptly titled closer, "Make Something Good." Yes, she did "make something good" -- all of these songs have something to say, something to give. In addition, Ms. Veirs' singing is better than ever; in fact, I don't think anyone, even with a better singing voice, would be able to improve upon these performances. There's a perfect meld of vocal, lyric writing and music here. Already, I can hardly wait for the next Laura Veirs project!
Description of July Flame
Laura Veirs seventh album July Flame, which Colin Meloy of The Decemberists calls ''the best album of 2010,'' explores the emotion of mid-summer. Drenched in wood smoke, sunlight, pollinators, pastoral dales, fireworks and warm nights, her lyrics explore thedichotomy between one s desire for permanence and security and the realization that such things rarely exist. Nowhere on the album is this inherent tension more crystallized than on the title track. Composed mostly in the barn behind her house in Portland, OR, July Flame is a relatively stripped-down folk record highlighting
Veirs masterful finger picking guitar and confident vocals. ''Laura s like the queen bee and my ear is her hive; she nests and makes honey in the hairs of my cochlea,'' says Jim James of My Morning Jacket (who sings on several tracks). The album breaks from Veirs previous full-band efforts, although
many of the same players make appearances on the album, including longtime collaborators Karl Blau and Steve Moore. String arrangements are featured more on this album than on
others; the brilliant improviser Eyvind Kang plays viola on many songs, and legendary arranger Stephen Barber composed hauntingly beautiful string quartet arrangements for three songs.
July Flame is the sixth album (and third released on her own label Raven Marching Band) that Laura and producer Tucker Martine (Sufjan Stevens, The Decemberists, Laura Gibson) have made together. Recorded and mixed at their home, the songwriting, arrangements, production and performances create a fully realized piece of art that inspires reflection and calm in a world that spins
unsteady.
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