Ruth Theodore – White Holes of Molehills
Ruth Theodore first came to my attention via 17 Seconds a couple of years ago, when Ed reviewed her debut album Worm Food, out on River Rat Records. At the time there was something of a glut of chirpy young female singer-songwriters, and Theodore’s vague entanglement with the fringes of that particular fad brought with it an awful lot of associations which made me twitch a little.
Even at the time, however, it was obvious that she had an awful lot more to offer than the lazy, reflexive comparisons might suggest and now that she’s back, having largely outlived that particular phase in the musical zeitgeist, hopefully her stuff can be taken rather more on face value. Or to put it another way, out of all the disparate, vaguely similar musicians towards whom people gravitated a couple of years back, it looks to me like Ruth Theodore was the only one who actally was the real deal.
What do I mean? Well, she’s sharp, witty, and has a vocal delivery which perfectly embodies the old adage about floating like a butterfly and, when necessary, stinging like a bee. Buried within the dancing torrent of words she delivers are genuine moments of insight, and countless barbed statements which are notably less nice than you might expect from the childlike charm of her voice.
She picks along with this on her guitar in a lively way, her fingers glittering across the strings like words flit around her lyrics. There is clarinet, double bass and cello added to this basic structure, and the flighty playing of the former only serves to add to the impression that these songs are actively shy of being pinned down – almost like a young child in adult company who shies away from every introduction.
That’s just the music, though. I almost get the impression Theodore herself might tell me to fuck off at the suggestion, and in that slightly belligerent forthrightness perhaps suggests comparisons with the likes of Animal Magic Tricks and Candythief, both fronted by women who have their own eccentricities, but would probably bristle a little at pretty much any kind of pigeonholing which involves terms like ‘female singer-songwriters’.
There are certainly times when this willful idiosyncracy produces music which has just a little too much character for my personal liking. Sometimes, I guess, I find it all a little too much and I notice the personality of the song more than the song itself, and this does definitely interrupt my enjoyment of this record a little more than it did Worm Food. Nevertheless, although I would add a note of qualification, I’d still recommend you investigate Ruth Theodore’s music.
Ruth Theodore – False Alarm
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Ruth Theodore – The Evolution of Mr. Charisma
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
