There’s something gentle, intimate, and at times even wistful at play on From The Ground. Broderick opens her mouth and an understated yet still powerful sound floats out with a unique dreamy almost ethereal lilt to her vocals. The Portland Oregon based Broderick plays everything from piano to zither to flute or even cello to accompany her acoustic guitar, though her brother Peter Broderick, also a folkster offers some additional instrumentation and produces the album.
It has this relaxed at home feel and she has a really unique approach to song-writing. In the first piece Something Other Than she uses her voice as a sound object over a long piano run. On the next, Cottonwood Bay, she is gentle and breathless singing sweetly, the timbre of her voice providing a sense of intimacy whilst she is strumming away on the guitar. Her music has no percussion and it moves slowly. There’s a stillness and simplicity here that belies some incredible mixing. The Colors in particular manages to meld sparse quiet hair standing on the back of your neck acoustic guitar notes with this rising almost electronic drone that threatens the piece occasionally, and it manages to do it in a unique and seamless way that feel totally natural. The album is lush, gorgeously produced, incredibly atmospheric and evocative with all the instruments sounding vibrant and very present. Perhaps most interesting is Broderick’s willingness to let the music unfold for long periods of time without her voice, so that when it comes it feels special and incredibly welcome. There are field recordings here and they are simply woven into tapestry. Structures are loose, there are no formulas here yet everything feels like it has been purposely placed. It’s a bold and beautiful album, the highlight being the nine minute instrumental drone piece For Misty, yet it’s surrounded by such endearing and sweet vocal based tunes that it’s hard to not feel a little guilty in drawing attention away from them.
Bob Baker Fish
