For most of us the word ‘bookish’ invariably surrenders images of pale, wiry student types pressing the nose-piece on their spectacles more firmly on to their nose before scuttling off into garret-rooms with an armful of poetry and a handful of sleeping pills. They may be ugly, they may be guardedly appealing, but they’re always introspective. So when not one but several critics describe Laura Veirs as ‘bookish’ believe me when I say they’re really onto something. To what level though, really depends on how irritating and unpalatable you deemed previous bedsit folk-divas like Suzanne Vega, Michelle Shocked and the genre’s airy-fairy-godmother, Joni Mitchell. Acceptable levels of quietude and introspection hover around the Mitchell mark for me. Less acceptable are the vicarious nether regions of Vega and Shocked whose slap-on-the-forehead cleverness and ‘amusing’, whimsical metaphorical conceits continue to haunt the folk world to this day. And though it may seem a little too cautious and convenient to suggest that Veirs hovers somewhere between the two, the truth is, she really does.
Whilst the shrill, grasping ellipsis of the little-girl-lost-in-a-storm-of-ideas-voice may be pitched firmly in the Shocked-Vega camp, the subtle lyrical strokes of her brush falls squarely into that of the Mitchells. For Veirs, the human condition is best grasped through the loose open weave of fantastic nature; the world of shimmering mermaids, mudflows, hot ash, vibrating bears, hovering homing pigeons, gathering ghosts, white spider stars and, lest we forget, meteor showers. ‘Mermaids’ traces a circular, hypnotic pulse replete with Roy Budd’s distressed ‘Get Carter’ piano-strings, some sparse beats, sparkling arpeggios and a haunting cello riff whilst tracks like ‘Galaxies’ follow a practically grungey guitar lick before suffering a cloudburst of cosmic noiseplay and cryptology. The album is unlikely to yield the kind of critical euphoria enjoyed by her third, breakthrough album, Carbon Glacier (2004) – chiefly because it more purposefully seeks popular approval and models itself around the kind of fractal electronica, and industrialising that is likely to unsettle even the most broadminded of folk aficionados. By way of consolation, however, fans of that album are likely to be overcome with quiet, introspective joy at the inclusion of delicate album standouts, ‘Spelunking’ and ‘Magnetized’ – both defined by square, minimal arrangements and the sweetest of melodies.
Come with an open heart and you won’t leave disappointed.