My apologies for my lengthy absence, dear readers. I
have had a hectic week of work and social engagements that combined to ensure I
was hardly ever home. The result of this was that I was able to immerse myself
in this next album.
Disc 1209 is… Let’s Just Stay Here
Artist: Carolyn
Mark and NQ Arbuckle
Year of Release: 2009
What’s up with the Cover? After three days the maid finally
broke down and violated the sanctity of the “do not disturb” card on the hotel
room door. After all, beds had to be made, toilets scrubbed. The heads were remarkably
well preserved, and she could only assume Ms. Mark had been watering them. How
that actually helped was the real mystery…
How I Came To Know It: My friend Casey originally put me
on to Carolyn Mark and this was just me digging through her collection. This
particular album was devilishly hard to find until a couple of months ago when
someone obviously “went digital” and dumped their entire Carolyn Mark
collection off at the local record store. I found this one, as well as a second
copy of “Nothing Is Free,” which I gave to Casey as payback for introducing me
to such a great artist.
How It Stacks Up: I have six Carolyn Mark albums, but this is
the only one that shares equal billing with NQ Arbuckle. Because of that it
can’t really stack up against the other five albums so I leave it to stand
alone.
Ratings: 4 stars
I love Carolyn Mark on her own just fine, but there
is an alchemy she creates playing off her fellow Canadian alt-country band NQ
Arbuckle that gives “Let’s Just Stay Here” a special magic.
The songs are divided roughly evenly between the two
artists, and while I was expecting to lean more toward Carolyn Mark’s work, I
ended up enjoying the whole experience without ever having to pick sides.
The record has a cohesive flow to it, despite moving
through a lot of musical styles. Folk, country and rockabilly all get a
workout. The opening track “All Time Low”
has an echoing and spooky electric guitar, reinforced by Mark’s sultry-sweet
vocals as she sets the scene:
“Down in Death
Valley
On the Day of the
Dead
At the lowest point
in North America”
Great stuff, and underneath it all Mark’s trademark
self-effacing humour. In this case, I got the impression of cancelled gigs and
nothing to do but lie around in your hotel room and stare at the ceiling. The
song has a haunting beauty, grounded with Neville Quinlan’s backing vocals (of
NQ Arbuckle fame) which float to you from what feels like under the ground, but
is probably just the room one floor down.
On the second track “Officer Down” Quinlan takes the lead. There is a taste of whiskey
and wheeze in his voice that gives everything he sings an extra dose of
weariness. It is exactly what is needed for the song, however. Here we get the
light airiness of Mark’s vocals adding the poignancy, this time from the room
upstairs.
Mark and Quinlan favour loose harmony, and the space
in between their voices adds a tension to the songs. They don’t overuse the
effect, sticking to specific points in specific songs to lend their talents.
They are also more than content to let each other drive solo when the song
calls for it.
The lyrics on all these songs are loaded with both
great narratives, with flashes of images and moments that shine like gems
within them. On “The Second Time”
Mark’s chorus of “how can the second time
be an accident?” is both funny and uncomfortable as she contemplates once
again not being invited to a party. On “Saskatoon
Tonight” Quinlan sings “Stay up so
late with my friends talking through a downpour/Guitars and rockabilly girls
drinking beer on a back porch” and you feel like you’re there, slightly
drunk, slightly tired and mostly content.
There are many references to Canadian locations that
ground the record in the specific. I knew a lot of the locations personally (on
“Canada Day Off/Toronto” I suspected
Mark of singing about the old Victoria night spot, the Cuckoo’s Nest, which
makes sense, given Mark is a local). It is satisfying when a song sings about
locations that you know intimately (New Yorkers are very lucky in this respect)
but when it is done right you don’t have to know the place. Very few people
have raced muscle cars down by a trestle in New Jersey, but that doesn’t
prevent “Darkness at the Edge of Town”
from being instantly relatable.
As an extra bonus, NQ Arbuckle contributes a cover
of Justin Rutledge’s “Too Sober To Sleep.”
I’m not a big fan of Justin Rutledge but he is a talented songwriter and “Too Sober To Sleep” is a masterpiece.
Now I get to have his best song without having to own a Rutledge album. (Don’t
feel bad for him – he gets paid as the writer either way).
I have a list of albums that I am looking for that I
carry around with me every time I’m going to be near a record store. A lot of
these records are damned hard to find, and those albums can languish on that
list for a long time but the list ensures I never give up. That was the case
with “Let’s Just Stay Here,” which was on the list so long I had forgotten why
I wanted it. It was a delight to be reminded over this past week.
Best
tracks: All Time
Low, Officer Down, Saskatoon Tonight, Canada Day Off/Toronto, Too Sober to
Sleep, When I Come Back, Let’s Just Stay Here
No comments:
Post a Comment