Diane Cluck is the proverbial birthed-in-urban-woods fawn (or, as one of her songs, says "Wild Deer at Dawn"): an "outsider artist." Piano lessons at seven (denaturing her wide-eyed talents); young-prodigy recital train-wrecks; circa 2003, the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony where she recorded half of Oh Vanille/Ova Nil was burned, and her own personal room, destroyed. Important pushed for two years just to get that first commercial release from her. Normalcy, or the burn of, well, everyday life: mythmaking, 2003-2006. She doesn't care what you think, as the backstory says; whatever problem you have, that problem is yours.
Cynics will touch on the Pennsylvania Academy of Music classical training, her Devendra Banhart endorsement ("I'm so happy to be alive at the same time she is because I get to see her perform"), the Golden Apples of the Sun inclusion, AntiFolk affiliation, or the affirming two-going-on-three real record releases, as evidence of some worldly self-consciousness. But I do not doubt she means exactly what she says.
Why the smoke and story? Perhaps because her work is so mono-expressive, made from tuneful-but-not-tunes guitar strums, and her voice-- deeper and emotional-rangier than fellow scenester Marissa Nadler's, way less weird than Joanna Newsom's or, say, Genevieve Elverum's-- is doing all the thought and work. Listen to her, actually, according to an old interview: "I believe anyone can write a good song if they would write exactly what they're thinking."
So, Oh Vanille/Ova Nile and Countless Times; let's dispense with maturity or growth comparisons between these two 2005 releases; literalism doesn't age. "Easy to Be Around", Oh Vanille's centerpiece quarter-love song, does double-up on the vocals (harmonies too) but floats in on the casual hook-- no points for guessing-- "You're easy to be around." She might have charmed you, or sex-jammed you ("Have I told you how I like to see/ A man submit to ecstasy?" off "Half A Million Miles From Home"), but the glow won't last: You don't even know her, that's gonna be problem over time, plus (dudes) I'm pretty sure she's married. I don't know...Dylan didn't do protest songs either. But nor did he do heart-to-hearts. Cluck's clanging guitar non-progressions on "Sandy Ree" harmonize with her voice, which harmonizes with, well, another track of her voice. Beautiful, but even her two-way street is hermetic.
David Marchese track-reviewed/cast-into-Starbucks "Your Million Sweetness" as audience-performer disconnect ("Maybe I'm the wrong demographic; maybe she is too"); what he got at, I think, is the eerie fact there is no audience in Cluck's modes at all. Jandek's inward look (to name another hyper-loner), at least, was one-and-done: Cluck's second-to-last Countless Times song is, take one, "My Teacher Died/Countless Times", and last song, take two, "My Teacher Died". Predictability's a real bitch.
Is this because, again, she doesn't care, or because she's an (A)rtist, or is it both? Countless Times warbles "Just As I Should Be" into this kind of take-it-either-way insouciance: "I'm not who you think I am. I'm not so good, I'm not so bad. I'm just as I should be." At parties, testimonials tend to make me finish my drink that much quicker; Cluck says "All I Bring You Is Love" but I doubt the pronouns. Her woods-mourning "Sylvania" (which seems to resent that William Penn dared to name Pennsylvania as he did, e.g. "How dare he lay his name upon that tract of land?") is so fucking strange and understated (not lyrically, but)-- why always the otherwise hard sell?
