For my first entry I thought that
it would be best that I pick something I really love. I know some of you have
probably heard this album before, but I think Ripely Pine has so much to offer
that it warrants repeat listens. As a debut album, Ripely Pine it is an epic
that transforms largely unheard singer/songwriter tunes into grand
multi-instrumental indie rock and folk arrangements.
Lady Lamb the Beekeeper (or just
Lady Lamb as she is currently known) is the stage name of New England native, Aly
Spaltro. Lady Lamb first started recording her music in 2007 in the basement of
the video store where she worked. The owner of the store would allow her to use
unused space in order to record her music. Many of the songs found on Ripely
Pine were in fact written in this video store and appear as reimaginings on the
LP. After several years of playing local shows and limited distributions of her
music, Lady Lamb relocated to Brooklyn, New York where she recorded and
released this album under Ba Da Bing Records.
While largely keeping to the same
overall style of folk rock, the mood of songs is often varied. From the at
times airy and eerie Bird Balloons to
the hopeful and intimate The Nothing Part
II to the driving Aubergine. Song
structures on this album are notable by their refusal to follow normal
conventions. Tempo changes are common throughout. Melodies are often picked up
and abandoned in smooth, non-intrusive ways. This all leads many of the songs
on the album to feel like a journey starting in one place and ending in a whole
new exciting direction.
Aly Spaltro herself is primarily the
singer and lead guitarist on this album, and the album truly showcases her
talents in these departments. Her voice throughout the album is strong and well
developed and leads to a sound that is much more mature than I expected from a
23-year-old. She also does not shy away from testing the range of her voice. As
far as the guitar work goes, I can’t really speak to the technical prowess of
it but it shows a wonderful knack for catchy riffs and clever punctuation.
Along with Aly’s primary talents, the album is filled with a variety of
instrumentation including a variety of brass, a slew of bowed instruments,
organ, melodica, and clarinet. All of these extra elements often add valuable
atmospheric background to many of the tracks. They make it clear that this
grand reinventing of her humble beginnings was worth it.
Many of the lyrics on this album
are in some way about love, and even more are about heartbreak and longing. All
of which is clear even if you only catch the lyrics that are most prominent.
However, what Lady Lamb brings lyrically is more than just love and heartbreak.
It is almost surreal. She often mixes scenes of nature with raw descriptions of
blood and body. Several songs start with playful metaphors only to end with
painful lament.
I think most of the elements that
I’ve been describing in this write-up are showcased in the song You Are the Apple. This is a song that
opens with a blazing southern rock intro that quickly transitions into
something sultrier. Eventually, the song slows to what is almost a march before
the strings come screaming in to spark new life. The song hits its climax in
one of my favorite lines ever for its raw and desperate image of missing a lost
love.
This album starts off on the right foot and in many ways defines the upcoming themes. Instantly, you notice Spaltro's voice...she can really belt it out and is clearly a talented singer. An overview of my thoughts on this album: I liked it, but it's long. A bit too long (1 hour) for my taste and I found myself getting a bit lost during some parts of the album. That said, I dig the atmosphere going on throughout the record, and she does manage to keep the listener mostly interested with shifting tempos both between different songs as well as within the songs themselves. In addition, there's nice layering of instrumentation throughout.
ReplyDeleteWhat did I like most? The quiet parts of Hair to the Ferris Wheel, the riffs in Bird Balloons, the theatrical nature of Mezzanine, the Sufjan-esque (sonically and in terms of the title) Regarding Ascending the Stairs, and it's kinda awesome when she screams a bit on Crane Your Neck. Which brings me back to the voice - it's pretty great and powerful.
I guess where I end up on this album is pretty lukewarm. Spaltro is really talented and is a good songwriter. I just find myself getting a bit lost due to the length and the indie-pop jangly songwriting at times just doesn't grab me. It's certainly a creative, sprawling record and she's got a ton of talent. Do you like her newer album from this year?
This album was a trip. The mood and scope of the album was obviously all over the place, but my opinions of it also changed dramatically from listen to listen. One constant was probably that I think Bird Balloons was easily the best song. I love the way she can go through so many different emotions and tempos in the song but keep it all tied together with the "this is my loss of love, my loss of limb" line. Especially after repeated listens this line became very poignant and satisfying to hear. I think the cadence and phrasing of words are definitely strong suits throughout the album. The vocalization of the line "love goes tick tock tick" demanded my attention, which, when followed quickly by the introduction of the band and dramatic change of tempo, adds up to a memorable intro song that made me realize I was dealing with an artist who is both original and unafraid to take risks and skyrocketed my expectations for the rest of the album.
ReplyDeleteThe first time through the album these expectations were definitely disappointed. Because the album changes so much, it was a lot to take in in one sitting and the eccentricities that at first intrigued me became a bit exhausting.
Though I still sick to the opinion that the album as a whole wanders into the field of self-indulgence and would've been more effective and digestible if it had been cut down a bit, as I became familiar with the songs it got more and more enjoyable to listen to the album as a whole.
I think Lady Lamb is just in general better at executing the more dramatic songs as opposed to the more stripped down folky songs, so I liked songs like Hair to the Ferris Wheel and Bird Balloons a lot more than Little Brother or Regarding Ascending the Stairs. I also thought she could get a bit too whiney and melodramatic in the lyrics like in You Are the Apple. I think the first and last 4 songs are really strong and interesting songs that work well together but there was a big lul in the middle for me that was consistently hard to get through.
I probably never would have listened to Lady Lamb if it weren't for this because I had some inexplicable opposition to her that I picked up somewhere, but though it's not my favorite music, I'm definitely happy I was exposed to it and I definitely have respect for her as an artist. Maybe I'll listen to her album that came out this year to see if she learned a bit more finesse.
When I began Ripley Pine, it was hard to gauge what kind of album I was in for. I quickly misjudged it as basic female-lead folk pop. However, I was very quickly proved wrong not long into the very first song. I really wish more artists put this much passion into their work. The fact that her voice can have the strength of an ox in one moment and the finesse of a butterfly in the next is beyond impressive.
ReplyDeleteLady Lamb does visit the ever so common concepts of love, loss, and longing for affection, but takes these themes and delivers them in unique ways. If not for her creative word choice, the lyrics would probably fall flat. Fortunately, Lady Lamb is an exceptionally talented songwriter.
Not only does this album prove its worth through lyrics and vocal tone, it also has some beautiful melodies as well. Even the more simple, less intense songs like Aubergine and Regarding Ascending the Stairs shine through for me because of this.
One thing I didn't like was the repetitive use of constantly changing tempos and tones. I actually really enjoyed the bipolarity of emotions on a lot of the songs, especially Crane Your Neck (my favorite on the album, by the way) and I think it worked well in some places. However, I tired of her schtick after enough uses of it. I understand that she's trying to use it as a trademark in order to make her music stand out more, but it was pretty predictable at times. Again, I want to emphasize that this technique was used well in some songs, and really shows how quickly she can shift moods with her voice. It just feels sort of unnecessary and predictable in other songs.
All in all, the individual components I mentioned above come together beautifully, and make for an experience that not many albums can deliver. This was first album since Sufjan Stevens' "Carrie and Lowell" that evoked strong emotion in me and made me teary-eyed at parts. I will agree with the others though in that the album is a bit too long for the average human attention span, but that does not necessary detract from the effort put forth with this album.
This is an album that does changes in tone and pace the right way. While this same stylistic choice is what put me off from completely enjoying Latitude (although I still maintain it’s a very nice album), it is incredibly ear catching and enjoyable here. There are energetic peaks of voice cracking indie rock falling down to valleys of banjo-twanged folk. These sometimes dramatic shifts feel like breaks from the frenetic moments instead of just haphazard changes.
ReplyDeleteThere is an emotional rawness on display here. She is belting out honest and relatable feelings of loneliness and wanting more from life. Her voice cracks and wavers in a real way. She is throwing her heart and soul into these songs and you can feel it as a listener. The songs twist and change and develop into emotionally raw confessions.
It is an odd conundrum however, that the main problem with the album is its length (at 1 hour it feels a bit bloated), but at the same time most of my favorite songs were all over 6 minutes. I’m not sure what I’d tell her to cut, but there is definitely something there that I can’t put my finger on. The shifts in speed and tone do a good job keeping the listener engaged however, which helps mitigate the lofty proportions.
Overall, I enjoyed this album a lot. Her LP from this year was also fantastic. I think from this record my favorite tracks were Bird Balloons, You Are the Apple, Mezzanine, Crane Your Neck, and Taxidermist Taxidermist. Nice pick Erik!
At first listen I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this album. Hail to the Ferris Wheel starts out quite boring and expected from a folk record so I didn't think the record would be anything unique or different. But as each song progressed, I was proven wrong. She's able to do an array of effects with her voice and it kept the songs with simpler instrumentation interesting for me.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Nora and say there was a bit too much variation between the tracks and after a couple listens I found myself skipping certain tracks. I do think the length of the album made this even more prominent and more difficult to sit down and listen through the whole album after the first few times.
I wasn't drawn too much into the lyrics but I was able to pick up on some consistent themes (loneliness, love, loss of love, etc). Pretty common themes in general, but the part that I liked is you were able to pick up on these themes from how she sang and used her voice to portray the various emotions.
The major downfall for me is some of the tracks are a bit too theatrical for my tastes. I think this goes back to the sonic variation between tracks, but it was kind of surprising going from the haunting nature of of Little Brother and the simplicity of Crane Your Neck straight into the the heavy instrumentation and vocal variations in Rooftop. It isn't bad per se, it was just very unexpected.
My two favorite tracks are You Are the Apple and Florence Berlin (I really loved her voice in this one, it's so sweet). All in all, it's a decent record with tracks that I really enjoyed and some that I could've dealt without, but the better aspects of the album do outshine its downfalls for me so it makes it an album I will most likely see myself coming back to in the future.