Due to the random nature of my album selection, it’s been almost five years (Disc 1484) since I reviewed an album by this next artist, but she’s always been in my heart.
Disc 1901 is… Nothing is Free
Artist: Carolyn Mark
Year of Release: 2007
What’s up with the Cover? This is one of the best album covers in my collection, so kudos to artist Kelly Haigh, who is also a singer I plan to learn more about…
Here we have our heroine, chained up on the outskirts of town and apparently intended as an offering for a demonic badger. Badgers don’t usually behave this way, but the skulls in the foreground suggest this one didn’t get the memo.
In the distance we have some industrial development pumping pollution into the dusky sky. Was it some nefarious Captains of Industry, bent on silencing our pesky folk singer by throwing her to the badgers? Will our chanteuse enchant the creature with her guitar playing and narrow-corseted waist, or will she disappear without a trace?
Well, not without a trace. Again, the skulls.
How I Came To Know It: I’ve been a fan of Carolyn Mark for a long time (first introduced to her by my friend Casey). This was a record I found on one of my innumerable searches through the CD stacks. I knew any Carolyn Mark album would be good, but let’s be honest – I would’ve bought this one for the cover alone.
How It Stacks Up: I have five Carolyn Mark albums, and “Nothing is Free” comes in at #1. I know the early stuff will always gain a glory for being first, but this record is simply lovely.
Ratings: 4 stars
A Carolyn Mark record is sure to feature some great folk songs, and likely a few chuckles as well. “Nothing is Free” has plenty of both, with Mark’s songwriting prowess on full display.
The musical structures are pure Canadiana folk, with touches of fiddle and mandolin filling in the space between Mark’s relaxed guitar strumming. The songs lilt along somewhere in the no-man’s land between weary and content. It’s a fine time exploring themes that are heartfelt, with a helping of brazen and a touch of naughty.
Mark’s vocals suit the space well, with a healthy handful of gravel in her tone, but a light sweetness in her high head voice. She deploys the tension well, a girl who’ll give you a sweet smile and then tip your macchiato into your lap for fun. It isn’t cruel or malicious, just playful. Besides you had it coming dragging your macchiato-sipping ass into the imaginary gin joint a Carolyn Mark song calls home.
A great example, these opening lines from “The One That Got Away (with it)”:
“There’s 2 kinds of women you let in your
life
Exciting New Mistress and Boring Old Wife
There’s the 1 that got away
And the 1 that’s here to stay
I just want to be the 1 that got away with
it.”
To say it is self-deprecating is to miss the point. Yes she plays around with her predilection for sin, but it isn’t with shame, it’s with celebration; a common thread through her many excellent records. Relationships are hard, and rather than feeling sorry for yourself, it’s OK to celebrate the mess of it all.
While I love the song, I do not love the dodgy use of numerals in place of words that is littered throughout the liner notes on this record. I must assume Mark was listening to a lot of Prince at that time.
Mark does not have blow-the-doors-off vocal power, but that’s not necessary for these songs. Successful delivery of tunes so laden with a barrage of clever words, requires air-tight phrasing, and in that department Carolyn Mark has talent to spare. She trills lightly across the top of the instrumentation or fills in the gaps in staccato faction as the song’s structure dictates, never losing musicality or tone through all the gymnastics. You may not notice it, but that feeling like she’s always landing the perfect punchline? – that’s what it does.
Near the end of the record Mark takes a slight detour into Vaudeville with “Poisoned with Hope”. I know the rhymes in this song are designed to be strained, but I didn’t love the effect, intended or otherwise, and missed the musical trill that gives the rest of the record its easygoing charm. A minor quibble, and not enough to knock a star off – just keepin’ it real.
Otherwise, not much to complain about on this record, which showcases an artist at the height of her talent, writing timeless folk songs that make you smile, nod knowingly, and feel small shivers of discomfort in all the good ways.
Best tracks: The Business End, Happy 2B Flying Away, 1 Thing, Pictures at 5, The 1 that Got Away (with it), Pink Moon and All the Ladies
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