Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier

Laura Veirs
Carbon Glacier
Label	Raven Marching Band
Erstveröffentlichung	12.10.2018
Format	CD
Lieferzeit	4 – 7 Werktage
Preis	14,95 € (inkl. 19% MwSt. zzgl. Versand)

Rezension

Sie ist zurï¿½ckgekehrt, und das mitten ins Herz. Selten hat mich eine Singer-Songwriterin mit ihrer verletzlichen Art so in der Seele getroffen wie Laura Veirs mit ihrem zweiten Album. Umso grï¿½ï¿½er waren meine Erwartungen an Troubled By Fire, dass mich aber seltsam kalt liess. Aber schon bei den ersten gepickten Gitarren-Klï¿½ngen von Carbon Glacier (2004, auf Bella Union), der melancholisch schwebenden Stimmung, dem sparsamen Beiwerk, dem weich-getupften Bass ist es wieder da, dieses schmerzhaft schï¿½ne Gefï¿½hl, das einen 13 dunkel schillernde Kleinode lang nicht mehr verlï¿½sst. Die Arrangements sind meist spï¿½rlich bis karg gehalten, ab und an glitzert ein Glockenspiel, schwingt eine Orgel, ï¿½berrascht ein Saxophon, schwelgen Cello und Viola, ï¿½berrascht ein heftiger Beat. Aber all diese Tupfer ï¿½ndern nichts an der herbstlich-warm-dï¿½steren Farb-Palette, die, bestimmt von einem Folk-/Blues-nahem Gitarrenpicking und einer einzigartigen warmen, zerbrechlichen, offen-unschuldig-naiv-verletzlichen Stimme die Seele direkt und zutiefst berï¿½hrt. Kaum jemand weiss allein zur Gitarre derart nachhaltig zu bewegen, den Hï¿½rer offenen Auges und Ohres so tief zu hypnotisieren. Und die Songs sind wertvolle Endschï¿½nheiten fï¿½r die Ewigkeit und die Zeit danach. (cpa)

Review

"With Carbon Glacier, Laura Veirs has created an album with a strong, singular sense of place: the place being the Pacific Northwest of America, from the Colorado Rockies where she grew up, west to Seattle where she lives, and further on out, into the amniotic embrace of the Pacific. The ocean, Veirs concedes, "is everywhere in this recording", something she attributes to her obsession with Moby-Dick.
The regionþs bitter climate is reflected in the elemental imagery of songs like "Icebound Stream", "Snow Camping", "The Cloud Room" and "Wind is Blowing Stars", as Veirs subtly espouses a Zen-like pantheism that affords all things - the weather, water, ice, even rusting hulks of ships - a spiritual dimension usually reserved for living beings. Fittingly, the first track, "Ether Sings", opens by invoking music from the "wooden vibrating mouth" of her guitar, as if raising its spirit to speak. When it does, the gentle picking is warmed by an occasional gust of accordion and, at the end, a hypnotic blend of strings, synth whine and Veirsþs amiable keening.
Few songwriters are blessed with the kind of contemplative, philosophical nature Veirs displays on Carbon Glacier, with childhood memories, sudden impulses and passing observations mined for deeper meaning. Thereþs a keen, probing sensitivity throughout to aesthetic matters, with "Lonely Angel Dust" a meditation on the transient nature of beauty ("The rose is not afraid to blossom/ Though it knows its petals must fall"), and "Rapture" contemplating art as doomed attempts to capture the rapture of nature, with references to Monet, Basho, Kurt Cobain and Virginia Woolf illustrating the risks involved. "Love of colour, sound and words," muses Veirs, "Is it a blessing or a curse?"
The settings devised by Veirs and the producer Tucker Martine make striking use of the viola of Eyvind Kang (whose own fourth-world offering Virginal Coordinates was one of last yearþs hidden gems), either as mesmeric drones alongside Lori Goldsteinþs cello, or smearing piquant, Eastern-inflected streaks that bring new light and shade to a melody. Other instruments evoke their own elemental impressions: the drip-drip-drip of plaintive banjo, the foggy drone of organ, the light but vivid guitar-picking like leaves dancing in the breeze.
In places, the depth and atmosphere of the arrangements recalls Dylanþs Time out of Mind, particularly the combination of ghostly, distant organ and bright, sparse guitar in "Shadow Blues". There are echoes of the The Dirty Threeþs contemporary sea-shanties, an allusion finally borne out in "Riptide", virtually a hymn to the ocean, an enthusiastic surrender to its ebb and flow: "Iþll float here with the shrimp and brine/ And on my cheeks and hair/ The salt will always shine/ And with this phosphorescent map/ A sailorþs chart, a mermaidþs hand/ Something Iþll find."" (The Independent)

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