For me, Patty Griffin's music often feels as if it accesses something, connects to something in me, in a way that I haven't felt consistently with any other artist for a long time. The experience is basically inarticulable (it resides in my chest and throat, beyond words); it's a kind of resonance, going beyond emotion to pure feeling. This may sound hyperbolic, but when I've thought about this in the past, the word 'miraculous' often feels about right, especially because those responses are often produced by her most subtle songs.
On American Kid, her latest, it's track 4, the ruminative "Wild Old Dog" that most fits what I'm trying to get at, but all of the first four songs are pretty much perfect, the others being gentle opener "Go Wherever You Wanna Go", the heavier stomp of "Don't Let Me Die in Florida" and then lovely, graceful, mysterious "Ohio", which I'd been listening to a lot in the lead-up to the release of the album - it's reminiscent of the prettiest moments on Raising Sand, and not just because Plant is quietly harmonising in the background.
Overall, it's a quiet record - I read an interview with Griffin a while ago, where she said that she's always attracted to the sad songs that tend to appear near the end of albums, often second from last, and that kind of comes through on American Kid, just as on her previous recordings, maybe most notably the earlier ones. And it's a really good one (not to mention well-suited to my current mood); I have a feeling that it, and her music generally, are going to keep on giving me a lot in the months, and longer, to come.
* * *
Incidentally, I've been thinking lately that just maybe this kind of music - broadly, the kind of Americana/country/folk that I like so much - may actually be my favourite kind of music nowadays. Boundaries are always blurry etc, but it does seem that the music that means the most to me these days - in terms of immediate, as opposed to historical, importance - is more often in this ballpark than the pop and rock that has always been, in various forms, the main event for me. If so, it's been a while coming - but noteworthy anyway, and a real change from the way that I've always seen my own musical tastes.
On American Kid, her latest, it's track 4, the ruminative "Wild Old Dog" that most fits what I'm trying to get at, but all of the first four songs are pretty much perfect, the others being gentle opener "Go Wherever You Wanna Go", the heavier stomp of "Don't Let Me Die in Florida" and then lovely, graceful, mysterious "Ohio", which I'd been listening to a lot in the lead-up to the release of the album - it's reminiscent of the prettiest moments on Raising Sand, and not just because Plant is quietly harmonising in the background.
Overall, it's a quiet record - I read an interview with Griffin a while ago, where she said that she's always attracted to the sad songs that tend to appear near the end of albums, often second from last, and that kind of comes through on American Kid, just as on her previous recordings, maybe most notably the earlier ones. And it's a really good one (not to mention well-suited to my current mood); I have a feeling that it, and her music generally, are going to keep on giving me a lot in the months, and longer, to come.
* * *
Incidentally, I've been thinking lately that just maybe this kind of music - broadly, the kind of Americana/country/folk that I like so much - may actually be my favourite kind of music nowadays. Boundaries are always blurry etc, but it does seem that the music that means the most to me these days - in terms of immediate, as opposed to historical, importance - is more often in this ballpark than the pop and rock that has always been, in various forms, the main event for me. If so, it's been a while coming - but noteworthy anyway, and a real change from the way that I've always seen my own musical tastes.
