From her first records in the last gasp of the 1990s, the Toledo, Ohio, songwriter Jessica Bailiff carved out her own space. She's collaborated with Dave Pearce of Flying Saucer Attack, and is in once sense his U.S. equivalent. Though both touch on slowcore and shoegaze, they are are impossible to pin down, playing with any number of other bands; both make songs that range from short piano pieces to 20-minute feedback driven monsters.
At the Down-Turned Jagged Rim of the Sky, her first full-length since 2006, is on the one hand just another Jessica Bailiff album, suffused with her cool, half-chanted singing and plenty of sonic murk. But it's also quite unlike anything she's done before. It's focused, without the lengthy experiments, and the flow of the album is coherent. Odd Nosdam's mixing adds a subtle punch, and her songs sometimes bring to mind New Zealand experimentalist Graeme Jefferies of the Cakekitchen, offering a specific vision of hooks, delivery, and fuzz.
But throughout At the Down-Turned Jagged Rim of the Sky, Bailiff's music resists easy summary. The opening "Your Ghost Is Not Enough" is a strong meditation on the tensions and feelings of long-distance relationships, and two songs later, "Sanguine" revolves around a fat burst of organ, bass, and increasingly louder guitars. The latter brings to mind the Doors fronted by Trish Keenan at first, but it transforms into something that's all Bailiff by the end. And then "If You Say It" takes it to a further level with what could be gentle flutes bubbling through the mix.
That all this was done in a home studio by Bailiff is no surprise-- that's part of her approach from the start, even as she's maintained her other musical efforts and day-to-day life. Bailiff not only resists whatever a trend might be in favor of her own instincts, she is also not afraid to go big in a way that neither apes modern mega-production nor just relies on a laptop patch to approximate it. There are, always, other routes, and she knows how to find them here.
A strong example comes near the end of the record with "Goodnight". Initially, a solo piano traces a melodic loop over humming drone, with Bailiff's vocals coming in as a gentle sway back and forth. It all sounds like a ballad, though a line like "It makes me sick" suggests something else at work: At nearly two minutes into the track that something else happens, as big guitars and drums emerge. They're buried just enough into the mix-- a suppressed anger and roar-- that the song feels like it's about to fully snap a tether. The extra organ that appears after three minutes adds further intensity, an unafraid embrace of the overpowering, while isolated strings emerge at the end. A lullaby this isn't.
There's a clear sense of arrangement and precision throughout. Often there's no overt variation or change in a song, but when subtle changes do emerge after careful listening, you get a sense of how her understated touch creates a strong impact. Bringing scope and space to a more intimate level, the miniature epic "This is Real" demonstrates the virtues of the slow build and Bailiff's careful placement: repeated keyboard parts are matched by guitars, then voices take the place of the guitars as new guitars are added into the background. It feels like sweeping exultance, a sigh, and the title's reach for something grounded.
That the album ends on the gentler note of the easygoing pop jam "Firefly" seems apt: Down-Turned is an album that starts in two different worlds, explores a range of possibilities, and ends brightly. It sounds exactly like what a fan of Bailiff would hope for, while offering something new and distinct*.* And it's proof that she knows her own particular path is the best one to follow.
