Wow – the CD Odyssey gods have decided they
want me to listen to Emily Barker. I ordered five albums from her a few months
ago, and this will already be my fourth review in the last 28 albums.
Disc 1290 is… The Toerag Sessions
Artist:
Emily Barker
Year of Release: 2015
What’s up with the
Cover?
Not much to say here. Emily Barker
in studio, looking eager to warm up that guitar in her hands.
How I Came to Know
It: I heard about Emily Barker
through her work in the band Applewood Road. Then I ordered a bunch of her
other stuff on Bandcamp, including this one.
How It Stacks Up: I have four other Emily Barker albums, and the
Toerag Sessions presents a bit of a quandary. Is it an album on its own, or is
it a compilation of previously released material? I’m going to stack it up on
the grounds that while these are old songs, they are new recordings. Judge me
if you must. With that slight bend in tradition, I rank this album #1.
Ratings: 4 stars but almost 5
Sometimes less is more, and when you have the
bones of old songs sometimes the best thing you can do is leave them bare and
polish them up.
As alluded to above, “The Toerag Sessions” is
a retrospective album. It features Emily Barker looking back over her career,
reimagining old songs in a stripped-down one-woman show. The album is just her,
guitar and occasional harmonica. Not only does it work, it makes the songs
shine with an inner light that makes them raw, real and deeply personal.
Barker takes inspiration from throughout her
career, going all the way back to her early days with the band “the-low-country”
in 2003/04. She also includes work from her first solo album (“Photos.Fires.Fables”)
plus all three of her previous efforts with her backing band, the Red Clay Halo.
Barker is a gifted guitar player, and she can
make her instrument trill with faerie-folk mystery, or float with hazy reverb
depending on what the song demands. Hearing the songs without any backing
instruments made me appreciate just how much depth and subtlety she can coax
out of a single instrument.
When she adds the occasional harmonica she evokes
early Dylan or Neil Young; three parts heart-worn troubadour and one part tormented
radical.
I’ve recently reviewed three of Emily Barker’s
albums with the Red Clay Halo, and six of the songs from those albums are
featured here. Of those, I cited four (“Little Deaths”, “Disappear”,
“Letters” and “All Love Knows”) as favourites on the original,
album reviews. As good as those recordings are, I preferred the recording on “The
Toerag Sessions” every time.
Part of it is that stark production I noted
earlier, but no less so is Barker’s vocal performance. She takes full advantage
of all that space in the otherwise empty studio. Her voice maintains the elfin
trill from earlier records, but it replaces the sometimes sing-song delivery
with a full and rounded delivery that sounds deep and mature with a visceral connection
to the lyrics that exceeds the standard of excellence she previously
established on the earlier recordings.
“The Toerag Sessions” features two songs from
Barker’s work with “the-low-country”, “The Dark Road” and “Lord I Want
an Exit”. Maybe it’s just that I hadn’t previously heard these songs, but
they had a strong impact. Both are dark and melancholy, with “the Dark Road”
featuring the juxtaposition of an echoing guitar and Barker’s sweet tone
cutting through the moody back strum.
“Lord I Want an Exit” features the muted
guitar roll you might expect on an early Leonard Cohen album, providing the
ominous undertone to a song about someone praying for release. Cancer songs by
My Chemical Romance can only dream of the kind of honest heartache Barker embodies
here of an old man desperate for death and the chance of a reunion with his
wife, already gone:
“O Lord, when will you grant me
leave
To the ocean of her ashes with
its blues and greens?
For heaven is my wife walking to greet
me
O Lord, please grant me leave.
“Is there an angel down the hallway
to escort me to her side?
I want death’s dark veil to cover
me tonight.
All the drugs they are keeping me
alive
But I want an exit. I want an
exit.”
Unlike the man in this song, I wanted no exit
from “The Toerag Sessions”. I wanted to seek solace in its sadness and mystery
all week long. But alas, the Odyssey knows no mercy. And so I sail on, knowing this
album will continue to echo in my soul for some time to come.
Best tracks: Little Deaths, Nostalgia, Disappear, Letters, All
Love Knows, The Dark Road, Lord I Want an Exit, Anywhere Away
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