Musing Aloud
Jane Siberry's audience grows young
The Walking, Jane Siberry. Warner Bros, 1987.
The Boston Phoenix, May 13, 1988
Happy birthday Jane Siberry… (b. October 12, 1955)
TO THOSE OUTSIDE her admiring circle, Canadian singer/songwriter/bandleader Jane Siberry has a flair for conceiving songs as prismatic, elliptical structures. Take the two-note hook setup for “Mimi on the Beach”: the approaching major-harmony phrases (“Up to the open sky/Down to the sea again and up to me”) are at least as disarming as the minor catcall they rise toward (“Mimi on the beach, Mimi on the beach/Mimi and me”). Such a guileless refrain might come off as piffle if it weren’t for the cunning way it emerges from the transition. It’s as concise a melodic clincher as you can get, and though Siberry surrounds it with sly vocal overdubs, flexible meters, and trapdoor missing beats, she doesn’t draw attention to the experiments she’s pulling off—they’re not the point.
Her recent live show at the Paradise indicated that she takes more delight in auteurism than confessional (most of her songs have a very conscious labyrinth like design). Dressed in black knickers and tango hat, and bolstered by two back up singers (Rebecca Campbell and Rebecca Jenkins) and her longtime band (guitarist Ken Myhr, bassist John Switzer, drummer Al Cross, and keyboardist Anne Bourne), she held the stage with humble confidence rather than histrionics. Outfitted with wireless headsets, she made little use of the mobility they afforded, barely moving her hips. She simply swayed back and forth to the languid pulses she set up, as the backup singers offered hand gestures and arm motions that suggested deaf signing. As a threesome they resembled the Roches, only without the eccentric irony in their attitude toward the performance. On record, Siberry double- and triple-tracks her bright voice in intense clusters of harmony, and on stage, too, the three voices achieved the effect of Siberry lost in harmony with herself.
Siberry can make the complex charming, and “White Tent the Raft” stitches disparate song sections together with ease—risky transitions turn inexorable.
The set covered all the songs from her new The Walking (Duke Street/Reprise) except for “Goodbye,” which she said the band won’t let her play because she “gets the chords wrong.” The pre-converted audience was in her pocket from the first tune, “Ingrid (and the Footman),” and it greeted better-known numbers like “Map of the World” and “One More Color” with the over-enthusiasm of cultists. Siberry most suggested a singer-songwriter who loves the sound of her own voice; she did so much explaining between numbers that she subverted the pacing. The sweep of The Walking moves on its own; in concert, the flow seemed hampered by case histories.
Her best numbers play against her overt girlishness. “Mimi on the Beach” combines a thoughtful take on voyeurism (everybody’s favorite hobby at the beach) with a haughty put-down—Siberry simply can’t tolerate a tanned sun goddess’s fantasies. (“This is a surfboard, not a yacht,” she scolds). The new single “White Tent the Raft” seems ripe for the promotion her new label, Reprise, can offer. A mirage-like tour that encounters contrasting scenes filled with lovers, warriors, tropical plants, and animals, the cut has eight bridges that draw you to the contagious gravity of the verse and refrain. Siberry can make the complex charming, and “White Tent the Raft” stitches disparate song sections together with ease—risky transitions turn inexorable.
At the Paradise, unfortunately, she didn’t play one of her funniest and sharpest social satires, “Waitress.” But she did set up “Extra Executives” (from 1984’s No Borders Here) with a hysterical story about taking a temporary catering job and squirrelling the escargots away to save them from certain digestion by the party munchers. The show went more than 90 minutes, and after two encores— including a reverent, overly slow version of “The Lobby” and a bouncy jaunt through “Symmetry (The Way Things Have To Be)”—Siberry returned alone to thank her fans, many of whom had mouthed every lyric. Her music slips toward the grandiose at times, but Siberry seemed modest to a fault.
Siberry’s Official youtube channel
gear
Way behind on this, but must report: I listen to this Trulli Jam 5 more than any other bluetoother, and not just because it delivers punch and verve where I most want it (mid, bass). I find the wow factor pretty strong here: what seems like a hefty portable delivers like crazy, and I find myself tracking down favorite numbers to try them out on it for something more: an odd detail, a randy color, or a hook with teeth. Plus, look at its innards. Just yummie:
album of the month
Magdalena Bay, Imaginal Disk (Mom&Pop)
noises off
Any day now: review of Randy Newman’s biography from the Los Angeles Review of Books
Next month: 27 CDs and a lack of cultural context in the reception to Dylan’s 1974 live box: how “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine” looks toward Nixon’s resignation
riley rock index: obits, bylines, youtube finds, reference sites, pinterest, beacons.ai, random deep link