a feature by Nat Bourgon
July 27th, 2013
You’re
spending your weekdays perched on a chair, next to a photocopier. Yet your days
are full of joy and peace because you don’t just feed paper into the machine,
you feed off the lingering smiles and contageous laughter shared with your new
coworkers.
You get
left behind by a friend, who has metaphorically moved in a southwest life
direction to your northeast. Yet you continue to do your thing, and your
positivity, energy and noticeable self ease creates a chance encounter with a
fellow northeasterner, who is drawn to your corner. Breakfast is eaten together
for lunch.
You look up
at the clouds and instead of imagining walking on them, you want to dance cloudtop.
You don’t
need wrapping paper this holiday season because you’re all wrapped up in giving
and getting love.
Perspective
is a freedom that we are all equipped with. It casts a net in the sea of change
capacity that dips vastly deeper, and offers thicker sturdiness than we often
envision. One of Tara Jane O'Neil's greatest strengths is her ability to give perspective the credit it deserves, and honour and communicate its ability to influence a person's happiness. O'Neil's music invites you to lean more heavily on perspective and utilize it more thoroughly. She reminds us that when utilized effectively, perspective can be your teammate and you can work with it to head on your own fulfilling, self satisfying journey (whatever that unique and personalized journey may be).
Tara Jane O’Neil makes music that inhabits a diacritical realm. A
realm in which the way we conceptualize, choose and implement diverges from the
superficial and enters the atypical.
Her music
is more than words and melodies could ever offer: It is a recipe for looking at
and living life, characterized by playfulness, celebration of the subtle moments
and happenings in the moment, and an emphasis on adding liveliness and energy
to circumstances and situations.
Her songs
saunter, shift, raft and roll, accentuating the trip over the terminus. Tara
Jane O’Neil’s songwriting is invulnerable to the perils of uniformity. O’Neil
somehow makes intricate illuminating. With a ringent mind and heart, her spirit
serenades us as aptly as her celestial, whispery voice and her titillating,
entrancing guitar playing.
“Peregrine”, O’Neil’s first solo record, is a nuanced, expressive, inventive, singular
sounding record, readied with a generous helping of placidity. "Peregrine"
possesses a bottomless beauty, which erupts in your soul and enhances your
heart’s ability to love and be loved. Followup “In the Sun Lines” instills dexterity and a newfound deftness for
ambiance and atmosphere that match her emotionally resonant musical palette.
Her voice comes into its own here, sounding more confident and clear. "TJO TKO”
dials back on the organic, acoustic approach of her previous LPs, and delves
into electronic texture. That it contains some of O’Neil’s most tangible,
earthy, sensory packed songs is a testimony to her diversity and
ingenuity. “You Sound, Reflect” is a
musically decorative, refined work that ups the directness of its lyrical
content while retaining its mysterious aloof persona. “In Circles” is as decked
in haze as it is in light; a real rarity. It feels like an older and wiser
sister to “Peregrine” which it builds upon stylistically and thematically. “A Ways
Away” is a bare, moody glimpse into desires, and a better future. It
acknowledges the past in order to harness that elusive new beginning. "A Ways Away" haunts
as much as it harnesses courage.
Tara Jane
O’Neil delivers notes and vox of love, acceptance
and togetherness. She is a wildly enamoring, enthralling musician whose work is extraordinarily affecting instantaneously, and endures itself even further with the passing of time. O'Neil's music continuously provokes creativity and inner growth in an encompassing, engaging and unique manner. O'Neil's music falls under a realm and way of living that is self-created by her thoughts, attitude and conceptualization, in turn revealing the capacity for perspective to influence a life for the better. That Tara Jane O'Neil's music is as immensely compelling as the message and ideologies it is founded on situates her a true artist and a true inspiration to us all.
Notes:
In a music
career that dates back at least 20 years, in addition to her aforementioned
solo records, O’Neil has also contributed her singing, songwriting, and
instrumentation to Rodan, Retsin, and The Sonora Pine. Tara Jane O’Neil ‘s seventh
full length solo record, “Where Shine New Lights”, is currently finished and
awaiting a fall 2013 release.
