Sky promised to Earth; you may not be able to touch me ever but if you come along with me; I promise, one day we will meet; and right that moment you will meet yourself too.
Armaan . She met him, in a circle of meeting ownself.
It's time for Beginnings, the podcast where writer and performer Andy Beckerman talks to the comedians, writers, filmmakers and musicians he admires about their earliest creative experiences and the numerous ways in which a creative life can unfold.
On today's episode, I talk to musician Laura Veirs. Originally from Colorado Springs, Laura first thought she was going to follow her family into the sciences. However, an artistic life called to her, and in 1999, she released her first, self-titled album. Since then, she has released almost a dozen more albums, become an international success, and recorded with Neko Case and K.D. Lang as case/lang/veirs. Her latest album Found Light was just released this summer on Raven Marching Band!
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Laura Veirs’ last album, My Echo, intimated her divorce from husband and long-time producing partner Tucker Martine. This one, her 12th, shows her getting on with things, distilling hurt and resilience into art with her characteristic songwriting clarity. She works this time with co-producer Shahzad Ismaily, who we last caught subtly enhancing and elaborating on Sam Amidon’s alternative-universe folk songs; here he performs a similar alchemy on Veirs’ jazz-scented pop.
Veirs’ songs have always decanted fresh, pristine melodies into artful containers. Simple and unruffled on the surface, they seethe with complex undercurrents. With Found Light, the surface is a bit more disturbed than usual. A few of these songs, including both singles (“Seaside Haiku” and “Winter Windows”), slip grit and violence and a bit of rock energy in their lovely interstices. Others, notably “Sword Song,” are heartbreakingly spare, just a few widely spaced guitar chords to frame them.
There are some really wonderful musical touches in these songs. “Autumn Song,” juxtaposes translucent layers of vocals one on top of the other, so that Veirs sings a kind of round with herself. It sounds utterly natural, as if she’s humming to herself, and yet rather complex. In “Naked Hymn,” a mournful saxophone floats effortlessly over a percussive chorus (“Touch has a memory/touch has a memory”), finding calm in solitary contemplation. “Signal” embeds a rough-housing drumbeat into its dream-y textures, grounding delicate tendrils of melody, but softly.
You get the sense of Veirs working to contain especially strong emotional content within the breezy, sophisticated contours of her music—and mostly succeeding. This is not one of those break-up albums that leaves you bruised and bleeding, and indeed, there’s a bit of hope in the way the songs tilt. Croons Veirs, “Death is about the ending and also the beginning/black flag with a white rose, I’m waving in a cold wind/I’m folding each hour in sun and showers/I’m turning my sword into a flower.” With Found Light, she has, indeed, made a lovely garden out of her troubles.
