With the current singer/songwriter market populated by such exotic orchids and heirloom roses as Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, and Josephine Foster, the appeal of Julie Doiron's music feels as simple and familiar as a cut daisy in a 7-Up bottle vase. Unlike some of her less earthbound contemporaries, Doiron is wholly disinterested in investigating either music's history or its future. Rather, her songs seem solely concerned with capturing the present-- the moment of their conception-- as accurately as possible.
Last year, Jagjaguwar reissued 1996's Broken Girl, Doiron's first solo recording after the break up of her group Eric's Trip, and the difference between those early works and Goodnight Nobody is jarring. The skeletal songs on Broken Girl felt at times unfinished, her guitar playing was hesitant, and she sang as if worried about waking the cat. Here, her vocals are nuanced and confident, and with the help of such collaborators as Eric Trip's Rick White and Wooden Stars' Dave Draves, each song on Goodnight Nobody is sent into the world fully dressed and neatly groomed.
Throughout her career, Doiron has followed the cliched "write what you know" maxim to a fault, and that doesn't change here; there's very little mystery within the plainspoken lyrics of tracks like "Snowfalls in November" or "Last Night". When Doiron sings lines like, "Tomorrow I will be on a stage/ And I will sing the words from all of the pages/ In front of all the people/ I will close my eyes thinking of you," she certainly gives you no reason not to believe her. (And when she titles a song "Banjo" you can be damn sure it'll indeed have a banjo on it.) Although this offhanded, honest approach does cause the album to lack an element of surprise, Goodnight Nobody makes up for it with its genuine air of emotional intimacy.
As is often the case with confessional songwriting, this charged intimacy leads Doiron into areas of emotional longing and melancholy. Fortunately, her songs are each so melodically engaging and deftly arranged that tracks like "The Songwriter" are able to delve into heavier emotive terrain without ever becoming oppressively self-indulgent. The instrumentation is kept loose and lean throughout, giving the album a dissipated electric folk-rock sound not dissimilar to Galaxie 500 or Cat Power. Piano, banjo, vibraphone, and restrained sampling all make strategic cameos on the occasions when Doiron's voice and guitar need some subtle embellishment.
Though her limited vocal range may prove to be a stumbling block for some, I find Dorion's imaginative phrasing compensates for her voice's imperfections. And indeed, Goodnight Nobody finds Doiron making the best use yet of her natural tools. Ever so quietly, she continues to cut a unique and noteworthy path through the indie rock underbrush.
