It snowed here in Williamsburg, Virginia for the first time in years today. Flurries were the forecast, but they soon turned to showers, covering the brick walkways that pass between the 17th century buildings. On this first day of snow-- the first true day of Winter in this section of the Atlantic coast in ages-- I sit with the thermostat cranked 85 degrees high, listening to the new album from Tara Jane O'Neil.
I'm sure some of you recognize this name, and even more recognize such band names as Rodan, Retsin, and the Sonora Pine, bands O'Neil has worked with in the past. With flakes easing past my window, I feel an affinity for O'Neil and her first true solo album, Peregrine. But not for reasons you may think.
According to the liner notes, this entire album-- instrumentation and songwriting-- was recorded by Tara in her New York City apartment. A brief outline of the many tools she uses includes piano, balla laika, banjo, and thumb piano. This complex arrangement should be an immediate red alert to the ambitiousness of the album. While the songs are restrained to the point of being timid, a close listen to the album's empty space shows just how aggressive and engaging her songwriting can be.
O'Neil's voice is strong, propelling lyrics about butterflies, the moon, and childbirth over the reverb and ring of electric and acoustic guitars. Sparingly used double-tracked vocals help emphasize themes of lost hope and despair. I realize this may sound obnoxious to some, but after two or three listens I began to look forward to lines that made me cringe the first time through.
Although the volume of the album remains constant, O'Neil moves in many different directions stylistically. "A City in the North" is reminiscent of the Cowboy Junkies' Trinity Sessions, a relaxed piece of melancholy lament. Its companion piece, "A City in the South," however, has the tone of a Carter Family waltz on a hungover Sunday morning. "Asters" alternates between the manic train rhythms of Captain Beefheart and a cowgirl ballad cooed around a campfire.
But considering the circumstances around the album, the range of styles feels out of place. The problem is not the monstrous sonic differences between Rodan and O'Neil's post-Rodan work. That's an issue that most fans of the early 90's Midwest sound have had to deal with (think of King Kong or the For Carnation). The problems with Peregrine are the contradictions it creates based upon the arrangements that O'Neil chooses.
First off, let's talk about the rural tone of an album recorded New York City. This music is for summer nights on the back porch shucking corn somewhere in the Midwest, not while begging for change in front of a ghetto McDonald's. Another strange aspect of Peregrine is how aggressive the lyrics are in their claustrophobic and intimate content. The subject matter of O'Neil's lyrics doesn't usually match the way she sings them, which makes her seem less connected, and occasionally, less interested.
On the surface, Peregrine is a beautiful album. "Sunday Song" is an absolutely gorgeous cut whose acoustic guitars chime under a chorus in which O'Neil's voice is particularly strong. On the other hand, there's an adherence to standards of sorts. Whether it's country rock or the post-rock wanking of "Flash Thumb Blues," the music serves to keep the meaning on a very basic level.
The disorientation I felt seeing snow here in eastern Virginia is the same sensation I've had trying to examine this album. The conventions that I would expect from Tara Jane O'Neil have been pushed to the margins in favor of extreme simplicity. She's describing gritty, graveled, yellow snow, but covers it with a lily white blanket. And while the surface still looks beautiful, the elements underneath prove too cluttered to make a snow angel.
