Kris Delmhorst Review
People rarely read poetry these days. By and large, schools no longer teach students how to hear the melody of the written word. In her latest album, Strange Conversation (Signature Sounds Recordings), sexy folkstress Kris Delmhorst sets out to combat this travesty.
Like Virgil's ghost leading Dante through the Inferno, she guides listeners through some of Western Literature's most famous poems. Along the way, she unlocks the innate beauty of their words and makes them accessible to a new generation who might not readily seek out the work of poets like Lord Byron, e.e. cummings, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
The album, Delmhorst's fourth studio effort, starts with a random selection of poems, literally taken from an anthology she found lying around her house. In some cases, she simply sets the original verses to music, such as her sad, strolling interpretation of Byron's "We'll Go No More A-Roving."
In others, her warm, honey-brown voice rearranges words and elaborates on the poet's original ideas as in her version of Walt Whitman's "Passage to India," a poppy, uplifting anthem entitled "Light of the Light."
Finally, there are the songs where classic poetry merely served as a catalyst for Delmhorst's own meditations, such as the title track inspired by the works of Virgil.
From the chanteuse's first arresting note in her interpretation of Robert Browning's "Galuppi Baldessare," the listener becomes aware that this is an extraordinary album by an exceptional musician. Delmhorst's voice (which sounds like a deeper, richer version of Norah Jones') and her arrangements breathe new life into these already timeless works, lifting them from the page and making them dance.
She also plays a myriad of instruments in addition to guitar, including cello and fiddle. Her eclectic musical taste adds unexpected treasures throughout, from a clarinet solo on the first track that inspires serious hip-shaking to the wah-wah of a speak-easy trumpet on "Invisible Choir," adapted from a verse by George Eliot.
What is most striking about this album, though, is Delmhorst's ability to delve deep into the soul of these works and reemerge with completely unexpected, but no less valid, themes and styles. For example, Cummings's "Pretty How Town" becomes a hopping country ditty with creaking fiddles, a makeover that turns an obscure, run-on sentence of a poem into a coherent nursery rhyme.
As a result, this album is destined to revive interest in poets that are today studied in extremely limited contexts. The arrangement of "Since You Went Away," for instance, is a gut-wrenching love song from James Weldon Johnson, a poet who is rarely mentioned outside of units on the Harlem Renaissance. But based on the stark beauty of this single work, he obviously deserves a wider readership and Delmhorst might just give it to him.
In the end, Strange Conversation is an album about art and its ability to connect with people regardless of time or place. This alone would have been a noble and worthy pursuit. But, in the process, Delmhorst also created an inspired masterpiece that will stick with listeners far into the future.
Join the Folk Music Section's weekly newsletter by sending an email to folkmusic@suite101.com.
Strange Conversation by Kris Delmhorst
|
Latest Articles