“From the Lion’s Mouth,” the second solo release of Bay Area songstress Nedelle, shines with the quietest, most intimate roars you’ve ever heard. Over plucked guitar and with non perfect pitch, she sings, “Remember the sky, all the planes with their lights/They tried to outshine the natural night.” Standing a pace apart from the indistinguishable crowds of indie acoustic artists and without the bluster of lions or electrical lights, Nedelle offers an album that you might reach for more often than you expect. By virtue of an honest sound and an offhand beauty, it’s a natural night.
Nedelle has stepped into different waters from her first album, “Republic of Two,” which is more jazz and bossa-nova inflected, inspired by old records of her jazz drummer father. But an aura of another time still faintly clings to her latest work, conjured by its limpid tones and Nedelle’s lovely languid vibrato. She delivers a hint of Astrud Gilberto, the clarity of voice and natural catchiness of Mirah, the sheen of artlessness of Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis.
Most songs are two to three minute sketches on relationships, accompanied with a lone guitar or sparse instrumentation and backing vocals. Despite the sweet sounds, the lyrics often follow a far darker line, with surprising but welcome imagery scattered about like cookies in your ice cream. Love is defined in a sunny waltz called “Good Grief” and a ‘60s-ish doo wop song warns cheerfully, “please learn to pray my boy, don’t come my way oh no, cry on your own time.” A love story could mean getting “on like a house on fire” or driving “away so carefully.” Winter and fall, tears and despair float about as insidiously as they often do in our own lives.
Nedelle could be that girl down the hall in your dorm who’s always strumming on her guitar or that local coffeehouse artist offering some pretty tunes. This kind of music always seems to walk a fine line between artless art and dull earnestness; maybe it is here where we find the lion’s mouth. Nedelle, for a healthy part of this record, remains relatively unscathed. |