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Tara Jane O’Neil – The Cool Cloud of Okayness (2024)
Review:
There’s a kind of radical acceptance about Tara Jane O’Neil’s first new album in seven years, a collection of songs created amid serious upheaval and dislocation. The singer-songwriter lost their home in Upper Ojai, California, swallowed by the destructive flames of the Thomas Fire — a chilling harbinger of the wildfires that have consumed huge swaths of the planet in recent years — a trial that came atop other cataclysms and losses that the world have has visited upon all of us in recent years. Eventually O’Neil and their partner Jmy James Kidd would rebuild that shared home and studio on the same ground, but during the interim, they were forced to relocate, spending time in the suburbs of the singer’s native Louisville, Kentucky, creating the new album in small steps, usually beginning with improvised bass figures that slowly evolved into the wistful, delicate songs that fill The Cool Cloud of Okayness, a recording of meditative beauty worlds apart from the musician’s early days in Rodan.
The elusive lyrics express a steely resolve with the most delicate sort of expression, surrounded by aerated melodies that drift like clouds. Joined by a small group of collaborators that shape O’Neil’s songs with gorgeously restrained details, they reflect on different kinds of transitions that turn to ambiguity not as a coping mechanism as much as a celebration of possibility. In “Curling” they murmur, “What was once a girl/ Changes shape again,” while in “We Bright” O’Neil sings, “Where we wear an old tattoo now/ There was once a bleeding wound.” The sense of acquiescence isn’t passive: in the same song they sing, “For joy is a form of fight.” Between the spare drumming of Sheridan Riley (Alvvays) and the varied instrumental colors of Walt McClements, the songs bask in a measured grace that feels like levitation.
The entire album is distinguished by a gentle attack that feels deeply comforting, as succinct instrumental flourishes—whether the blend of McClements’s smeared trumpet and probing crystalline guitar of guest Meg Duffy on “Two Stones,” or the dusky twang of the singer’s reverb-soaked guitar swerving through the moody instrumental “Kaichan Kitchen”—bring judicious detail and gravity to songs that often feel utterly weightless. The title track sparkles with a kind of ’60s folk-pop vibe, beautifully embroidered with otherworldly slide guitar, teasing out some lovely Morricone-esque duskiness. But its sense of space and the deceptive fragility of the arrangements couldn’t sound more contemporary. The tune looks back at a world that has been transformed, but O’Neil isn’t nostalgic for it, instead expressing gratitude for what the changes have wrought. They close the song “Two Stones” with the couplet, “No words to sing/ But we are standing,” which hits like a cosmic act of gentle resolve. — daily.bandcamp.com
Track List:
01 - Cool Cloud of Okayness
02 - Seeing Glass
03 - Two Stones
04 - We Bright
05 - A Dash
06 - Glass Island
07 - Curling
08 - Fresh End
09 - Kaichan Kitchen
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, dream-pop
Origin: California, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
Note: If you like the music, support the artist
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