Basia Bulat – Heart of My Own
Hmm, this is a strange one. Listening to this, I find myself swinging rather wildly between ‘fuck me, this is dreadful’ and ‘ooh, this is rather nice’, with little rhyme or reason as to which feeling dominates at which points.
If my mum listened to this I think she’d burst out laughing at how similar it is to some of the music she listened to when my brother and I were growing up. This is old fashioned alternative folk, conjuring fields of wild flowers, flowing Summer dresses and vaseline smeared all over the camera lens. I think Zooey Deschanel should probably be involved somehow as well; presumably the enigmatic one in the dress though, not the one smeared in Vaseline.
It’s not all quite like this though, in fact it doesn’t even start like that, instead beginning with a touch of rock ‘n’ roll, complete with a slightly military ratatat drum beat. These songs really don’t appeal to me anything like as much, I have to confess, but that’s no fault of theirs because I have rarely ever liked that particular style of music. The closer this gets to the hushed, the delicate and the dreamy, the happier I am.
Bulat’s voice has a delicate tremor to it, which gets uncomfortably close to the over-wrought power ballad wobble when the tempo rises and she starts to belt it out. On the quieter songs, however, it’s bloody gorgeous – sensitive and vulnerable, but never weak.
The rock ‘n’ rollier songs get reasonably close to Samantha Crain in some senses, although without her suggestions of defiance and bravery. The banjo is nice, but then, it’s one of my favourite instruments at the moment, and when all is said and done I am just not sure that I am ever going to like these songs. They’re just a bit too 10, 000 Maniacs for me, I think.
So whilst I really like the really quiet ones, my personal enjoyment of this album is always going to be heavily restricted by the prevalence of the fuller, more involved arrangements and the more upbeat, rockier numbers.
Basia Bulat – I’m Forgetting Everyone
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No files attached. Which is a shame because I want to hear the music that would draw out this review.
Whoops, sorry, wrong link. I think that’s that sorted now.
Music aside (yes, I know that’s heretical), she’s a lovely lass who charmed my socks off. She also likes vanilla ice cream. And she speaks Polish.
*feels he’s not really added much to the discussion*
Dammit FiL you big softy! She’s an artist now, none of your sympathy – next thing you know she’ll be expecting a roof over her head and decent payment for her work and the right to make a living and all sorts of other outrageous demands – you have to be ruthless with these people!
When does Zooey Deschanel smear herself with Vaseline? My morning just got booked up on google…
Basia Bulat = Canadian
P.S. Yes this is Canadian Edinburgh Dan. I’m still around, hope to run into you at a gig soon; I’ve been keeping a low profile lately it seems.
I’ve always had a soft-spot for 10,000 Maniacs, I might like this (will find out when I get home from work and listen to it). Is a comparison to 10,000 Maniacs really such a bad thing? I know Natalie Merchant’s solo stuff kind of petered out after Ophelia, but she has a terrific voice. Or maybe we just left all that behind in 1993 along with MTV Unplugged?
I get caught up with this all the time. You say you hate parts of the album, yet these songs are very good. The upshot of this (and it happens a lot), I’ll go and buy this album and find that the songs I like I already know.
Ah, the perils of postable music!