Monday 26 September 2011

Meg Baird - Seasons on Earth

Time Machine

Meg Baird still rides the Espers time machine on this solo effort and transports the listener back again to 70s ethereal folk. A modern nuance, however, is the sweet pedal steel of Marc Orleans on track Share [and opener Babylon] which is otherwise bathed in gentle harmonies like folk legends Trees, and elsewhere Baird's confident acoustic is complemented by dobro and other electric guitars, like the excellent Stars Climb Up The Vine.

Even Rain has echos of Joni Mitchell songwriting and voice, another one of the album's many welcome references/tributes to a folk past. Penultimate track Steam is the most electric and slightly countrified, again benefiting from the Orleans pedal steel both as driving rhythm and then delicate additions. Closer Song For Next Summer is awash with plucked acoustic guitar and Baird's whispery to bell-clear vocal variations.

The chorus Beatles and the Stones made it good to be alone from the song titled after the first part of that rhyming line perhaps best sums up the ideal listening experience for this album: a quiet and meditative self-indulgence; a relaxation in the time-warp that is Meg Baird's 70s folk recreation.

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