At times, our self-responses to our emotions roam indecisively and oscillate abroad the acreages of fluctuating traversal.
On her new album "Across the Hemisphere", I intuit that Marianne Flemming's songs encapsulate our curving minds' ongoing recasting of stances we choose to take, cast aside, and integrate. From my perspective, the record narrates our inner worlds' configurations and subsequent re-configurations of our variational, personal processes of charting our undulating interactions with our emotions.
From my ears, Flemming's new tunes articulate and empathize with our wavering, often-fickle rotations of detecting and re-evaluating about what "our ideal" amounts to. In Marianne's music and lyrical expressions, in my interpretation, I hear an overarching progression of how our conceptualization of "our ideal" is ever-changing, and how the idea of "our ideal" is an interim proposition. (Nelson, 2017). (Bandcamp, Nelson, 2017). I hear the notion that what we start to consider "ideal" will often have evolved again once we've self-committed to and lauded a particular, temporary rendition of "our ideal". (Nelson, 2017). (Bandcamp, Nelson, 2017).
Marianne Flemming experiments with her vocal range over the course of the album, and introduces an assemblage of groovy sonic ideas, communicating how our unique-to-us, shapeshifting expedition of "emotion self-tracing" outreaches and transcends definition's at-times confined, cramped space of rigidity.
"Something Has to Give" is no square dance, it is a metaphorical octagonal dance, with many musical angles. The track contains an amiss aura, along with lyrical and vocal emoting of pent-up frustrations, and vibes of where the envisioned is out of commission. The song opens with a percussive groove that evokes a fresh, unheard-of-before sound-based imagery of salsa music curated and customized for a spa! "Me I'd fly away/If I could find a decent broom/Now I'm out with Brother Ray/Howling at the moon", Flemming sings with a slightly irked, yet actively-brainstorming mindset, while the bluesy guitar parts trill. (Flemming, 2021). Feel-good melodic twirls graciously contrast the seriousness in the lyrical mapping.
Sonically dreamy and texturally refreshing, "Desdamona" actuates its faculty of musicality in a flexible posture that invites thoughts of the spiritual mystique of cloud eyebrows. This dynamic song also inholds the feeling of being rooted in the glutinous leftover rainwater of terrene reality checks. The sentiment that we can feel bogged down, we can feel grief, while simultaneously feeling in awe of life and its opportunities, its superbness, and its love, that our feelings don't have to be a "one or the other" exclusive: I sense this sentiment in the chorus when Flemming wistfully yet reassuringly vocalizes the lyrics "Dance with me, Desdamona/Across the floor, let's glide/Take my hat in this moment/Together we'll step in time", with a feathery phrasing. (Flemming, 2021).
"That's Enough" features a tousled twang, and a gritty, bleared vocal modus that suggests a tunnel-like, chasmal ambience. Marianne sculpts and re-sculpts her intonation. Kevin Neil's vocal harmonies feel consoling and hospitable, light-jogging beside Marianne's stalwart, husky lead. (Bandcamp, Flemming, 2021).
"Ruby Red Slippers" doubles down on funky aplomb, with a side order of rockin' premise! Back in opener "Something Has to Give", Flemming sang about "howling at the moon." (Flemming, 2021). Here, on "Ruby Red Slippers", she treats us to some singing delivered with the resounding huzzah of a moon howling session! "All those witches going to scatter when they see the rainbows in my eyes", Marianne asserts with vivacity and gumption! (Flemming, 2021). I marvel at how distinct Flemming's singing is from song to song on the album, and even from part-of-a-song to another section of that song.
When I listen to "Moonpie", I envision the song as Flemming composing her own idiosyncratic imagining of a just-before-intermission musical theatre scene, set in the 1940s, with a partially classical, partially jazzy bend, and a thespian, theatrical quality to it. Olivia Duffy's zingy, agile violin adds a cozy layer of bluegrass to the climate of instrumentation, interacting intriguingly with the dramatic dazzle. (Bandcamp, Flemming, 2021).
"Lucky Me" is instrumentally serene, yet initially there are inklings of a glum sensibility present. As Kari Newhouse joins in, the presence of her balmy vocal tonality and the dynamically uncanny alignment with Flemming's voice is bestirring, as the song discovers a compromise of middle ground between optimistic spry and processing's deliberations. (Bandcamp, Flemming, 2021).
Title track "Across the Hemisphere" has an euphonic, bouncy geste, and is equipped with inspirational inclinations! Marianne Flemming takes a cadenced, mirthful approach to her wagging vocals. The fluid production thankfully encourages Flemming's vocals to anchor the song as a focal point. There is a welcomed informality to Flemming's lyrical approach here of bringing forth suggestions and wisdom, such as when she humbly, yet with animated spunk imparts that "You should be on the cover of a magazine/In all your untouched glory/Telling everyone your story." (Flemming, 2021).
Finale "Small Hope Bay" opens with a susurrant, whishing effect that prompts thoughts of clouds launching their day by partaking in non-strenuous warm-up morning exercises. As the track unspools, driblets of piano and the usage of spongey acoustic guitar educe visualizations of an early riser out for a paddle on a stream of quietude, with the sounds of nature's quartet-plus of periodic trickles offering a neighbourly, tender soundtrack of modicum accompaniment. Flemming's singing has an intimate, soothing scope here, consonant with the sonic minimalism and mutually nurturing interchange of receptiveness.
To summarize, Marianne Flemming's new album "Across the Hemisphere" is a versatile, enlivening, memorable record, chock-full of fetching originality and deeply affecting, cherishable parlance.
Note: In addition to her new album "Across the Hemisphere" which I reviewed above, I also highly recommend Marianne Flemming's previous full-length albums, including 1994's "III Chords and a Bridge", 1999's "Venetian Dream" and 2008's "Pure and Simple".
Sources
I acknowledge the usage of the following online thesaurus, Word Hippo, which aided in writing this review:
Kat IP Pty Ltd 2008. Word Hippo. Retrieved from https://www.wordhippo.com . Accessed March/April 2022.
I acknowledge that for the music credits mentioned in my review (review includes some mentions of musician names, and mentions some music credits of musicians that played on songs or added vocals to songs) were sourced from Marianne Flemming's Bandcamp site (as below):
Bandcamp, Marianne Flemming. 2021. Bandcamp. Across the Hemisphere | Marianne Flemming. Retrieved from https://marianneflemming.bandcamp.com/album/across-the-hemisphere/ . Accessed March/April 2022.
Note: In the instances where the (Bandcamp, Flemming, 2021). citation occurs, this citation is specifically for the mention of musician names/music credits that were sourced via Marianne Flemming's Bandcamp page.
See https://marianneflemming.bandcamp.com/album/across-the-hemisphere/ for a full listing of music credits on Marianne Flemming's album "Across the Hemisphere".
All song lyrics quoted in this review are written by Marianne Flemming, 2021, BMI.
Marianne Flemming. Across the Hemisphere, self-released, BMI, 2021.
Note: In the instances where the (Flemming, 2021). citation occurs, this citation is specifically for the song lyrics written by Marianne Flemming that appear in this review in quotation marks.
Descriptions of the songs, interpretations and thoughts expressed about the music, interpretations and thoughts expressed about the lyrics, interpretations and thoughts expressed about the instrumentation, and interpretations and thoughts expressed about the sonic synergies and production are original writings and original perspectives written by Nat Bourgon, 2022.
Note: The sentences: " Marianne's music and lyrical expressions, in my interpretation, I hear an overarching progression of how our conceptualization of "our ideal" is ever-changing, and how the idea of "our ideal" is an interim proposition. I hear the notion that what we start to consider "ideal" will often have evolved again once we've self-committed to and lauded a particular, temporary rendition of "our ideal." were inspired by a lyric written by Cynthia Nelson, "provide impermanence as the constant upon which the all-else rests", from Cynthia Nelson's song "i am a great and mellow leader", on Cynthia Nelson's 2017 album "out of the cave".
I denoted the inspiration with in-text citation (Nelson, 2017). for being inspired by Cynthia Nelson's lyric, and with the in-text citation (Bandcamp, Nelson, 2017). since the Cynthia Nelson lyric I was inspired by is sourced via Cynthia Nelson's Bandcamp page, https://cynthianelson.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-cave-2/
Cynthia Nelson. out of the cave, self-released, 2017.
Bandcamp, Cynthia Nelson. 2017. Bandcamp. out of the cave | Cynthia Nelson. Retrieved from https://cynthianelson.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-cave-2/ . Accessed March/April 2022.
