“I’m a harmony/And extra-cellularly/I’m singing this to you/Through your laptop,” Linda Perhacs sings on the title track of I’m a Harmony. After releasing her 1970 debut Parallelograms—which for decades was her only album—Perhacs became a sort of vanished flower child for the folk/psych collector set. I’m a Harmony is her first record in three years, and her third in all, and its title reads like a koan. But it’s also a boast, as Perhacs delivers her meditative folk with typical aplomb. Released from the burden of following up a cult classic, and supported by familiar collaborators, Perhacs is free to stretch out and have a little fun.
Lyrically, I’m a Harmony continues where 2014’s The Soul of All Natural Things left off: plainspoken contemplations of the physical realm, relationships, and the ways in which the two collide. Like Natural Things’ titular first cut, I’m a Harmony’s opener “Winds of the Sky” locates the divine in the meteorological. Perhacs’ stately melody drifts over bass-led downtempo passages; Wilco guitarist Nels Cline closes the song with an awestruck solo reminiscent of Robert Fripp’s work with the Roches. On “Eclipse of All Love,” a waltz-time duet with the Autumn Defense’s Pat Sansone, Perhacs tracks an incoming storm, then connects it to personal matters: “Ain’t it a shame/If we are to blame/For this serious game/On the physical plane.”
Perhacs plots these nexuses of the earthly and emotional all over the album. To devotees of new age music, the approach is familiar. Those hoping for a return to the vibes of her debut may be disappointed, however. Though Parallelograms was produced by Oscar-winning composer Leonard Rosenman and released on an MCA imprint, it’s sometimes categorized as “loner folk,” a catchall genre for idiosyncratic, hermetic records with psychedelic dusting. (It’s also called “acid folk,” though Perhacs was drug-free.) When Perhacs first entered the studio decades ago, she was a dental hygienist—she met Rosenman at work, in fact—with a homemade demo. But while recording she had the good sense to tailor her talent to the skills of the assembled studio vets.
Similarly, I’m a Harmony finds her drawing on the strengths of her current collaborators—several of whom she worked with on The Soul of All Natural Things, or on their own projects—to push her sound outward. Returning player Julia Holter is featured on four cuts, two of which are Perhacs’ longest compositions to date. Holter offers a second lead vocal on “I’m a Harmony,” and her deft keyboard work helps navigate the song from playful airiness to a jammy gallop and back again. The solemn “Visions” opens with Holter and Perhacs intoning wordlessly, coolly looping around each other like contrails; they do the same at the song’s midpoint, adding dubby percussion and slide guitar. In the liner notes, this section is labeled (visual music sculpture).
In a 2014 interview, Perhacs acknowledged how she clashed with her co-producers (Fernando Perdomo and Chris Price, who also worked on Emitt Rhodes’ 2016 comeback Rainbow Ends) over these kinds of non-organic touches. “If you hear a synth [on The Soul of All Natural Things],” she said, “it’s because I put my foot down.” The discussions paid off, and while Perdomo and Price rejoined Perhacs for this new record, her electronic visions carry the day. The contemplative textures and freeform passages lend an existential heft to songs that could otherwise come across as willfully earnest. And the more straightforward compositions—like the tender birthday song “One Full Circle Around the Sun” and the pendulant reverie “Beautiful Play”—benefit from the contrast. On The Soul of All Natural Things, Perhacs joined the distinguished club of artists following up decades-old recordings. With I’m a Harmony, she slips free from the comeback narrative, expanding the borders of her particular cosmology: lovers and friends, bound by the wind, linked by laptops.
