With a simple turn of phrase and a precious larynx to turn it, ex-Breeder, Belly and Throwing Muse, Tanya Donelly lulls James Berry into a false sense of security only to strip him naked.
10/08/2004
She begins tonight’s performance in exactly the same way as she begins her sumptuous and still new record, with ‘Divine Sweet Divide’; unoppressive piano, a whole lot of close open space and words that flutter from her tongue toward the dusty horizon like petals lifted effortlessly on an autumn breeze, because that’s Mother Nature’s design. Instantly there is beauty, borders distinguish themselves and a whole room simultaneously melts into a shared space. We know they’re always there but it’s like the chandeliers have been hung there in her honour.
It is only right that this ex-Belly/Breeder/Throwing Muse continues to make music, even in the event that she could never surpass the peaks of Belly’s wonderfully bright ‘Star’ or the angelic solo lullabies from her last ‘Beautysleep’ record. She has a voice which is deserved of a higher blessing, one which is ripe for preservation, one that has and will continue to weather the long haul. The malt vinegar to her precious larynx on new album ‘Whiskey Tango Ghosts’ in an understandable progression for this former indie starlet, is the traditional melodramatic sparseness and personal testimony of country music, stripped utterly, starkly naked and alone in dusky sunset moments.
And in ‘Divine Sweet Divide’, as with so many other of her works, she motions up and down emotional stepping stones lulling you into a sense of awareness before blowing that all apart by pushing up to an altogether more breathtaking plain through a vocal range that stays as pure as it is overwhelming. But that is just the beginning. When she announces quite firmly that “there I said it I’ve done you wrong” at the opening and in the final ascent of ‘Just In Case You Quit Me’ you can feel the weight of a thousand arguments and a thousand and one attempts to make things better. These feel, in many instances, like songs that took years before they could even begin to be written.
She retains a turn of phrase that is as sweet as the scope of her range. “You’re just a freckle away from changing everything” on the album’s title track, “I keep my heart on hinges just in case you quit me” on the aforementioned ‘Just In Case You Quit Me’, and “what’s that thing about a butterfly wing causing a typhoon / if it’s true a wire runs through everything we do then I better stay in my room” on ‘Butterfly Thing’. And the feelings and visions they create transcend the space between their original contained environment and here, sounding just as personal and true with a couple of hundred souls trying to grab pieces for themselves.
The lines on her face suggest she’s lived through similar years and experiences as peers Kristen Hersch and Kim Deal, but she has a vitality that suggests a much more virile spirit. This is maybe in no small part down to her young daughter Gracie, now 6 and stood stage right heckling her mum’s anecdotes about visiting the London Eye. She glows when she refers to Gracie’s constant interjections and anything that inspires such an already consistent talent, and could keep her going many years into the future, should be celebrated. So Tanya isn’t the only one we applaud tonight.
Relevant sites:
https://bellyofficial.com/
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2004©