Jenny Mitchell – Forest House (Civilians) (13th Floor Album Review)
Jenny Mitchell offers us an album of exquisite beauty borne of Aotearoa’s South that gives voice to the wisdom and yearning that can reside between the walls of the lives we build.
It’s been an extraordinary run of first-class releases by Kiwi women singer songwriters over recent months (Mel Parsons, Nadia Reid, Charlotte Yates…). And now Jenny Mitchell’s Forest House adds to the line-up: a reflective set of songs probing matters of the heart and firmly set in this land.
Opener Little Less Lonely sets the tone for the album with the lyric ‘when the sun turn the clouds all pink/it surely makes me stop and think/ and I feel a little less lonely’. Mitchell’s mastery of voice and lyricism is to the fore from the outset. Attention to setting and an acknowledgement of the inner as well as outer landscapes. And commentary on the heart of the human condition with ‘lonely is everywhere you go’.
Dirt speaks of frost, lambs, dogs and hills. This is music of Aotearoa’s rural South in all its raw expansiveness. Roots matter. ‘All my love is in that dirt’ sings Mitchell, devoid of the clichés that haunt much country music.
Unsurprisingly with ‘house’ in the title, the album is a family affair. Daffodils features Jenny’s father Ron Mitchell who complements the sweet flow of her voice with a gravelly Johnny Cash-like counterpoint. The spring bulbs of the title are symbols of the passage of time (don’t we all know them in spring on farm driveways?) and its bittersweet influence on intergenerational bonds. The now rare art of whistling appears towards the close of the track. For me at least, a remembrance of a past generation.
Wives Who Wait changes the tempo with a driving rhythm and move to electric guitars. A song exploring spousal expectations (perhaps). Square & Plain seems to get more personal (‘I fly across the country/ spent the last of my money just to touch you’). A song of yearning. Mitchell’s wavering voice taking the listener on the emotional oscillation that so often inhabits relationships (‘You wished me all the best/ and all the other stupid things we say’). The limits of language . (‘You were the picture I framed/ so I guess I’m the only one to blame’). Lyrics that trace the arcs of aspiration and exasperation. Part of a lineage of songwriting hinting of an earlier Mitchell – Joni.
In the most trad-country track No Cash, No Meal Mitchell allows herself a little twang (‘you’ve got more nerves than a toothache’ ). For some reason, early kd lang (the Reclines era) comes to mind. To You, Julie could be a conversation with a relative with its hopeful tone of ‘May you always have a hand to hold’ .
Wildflower is another gem, featuring a duet with Michael Hood. Banjo picking and exquisite harmonies reflect on a life stage (‘It’s not time to be slowing down/ It’s not time to be turning round’).
Where the Water’s Cold is gospel in style ( ‘way down south they all know your name/ Keep your mouth shut, girl’). That ambivalence of close-knit settlements: mutual care but social claustrophobia. The risk, perhaps, of people knowing too much.
Sister appropriately features Jenny’s younger twins: Meagan and Nicola (The Mitchell Twins). It’s a bit of a ‘girls can do anything song’ perhaps….(‘I am a soldier if a soldier is what you need….). A woman’s version of Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man almost. But a celebration of sisterhood and the love that endures regardless of occupation in life’s unfolding. A recitation of possibilities within which there will always be a sister, celebrated in glorious Mitchell harmonies.
The Curse slows the tempo with rich guitar sounds before the last track Heart Like a House (‘a port in a storm when you’re feeling alone/I’ve got a heart like a house for you’). A rich simile to end the album. A warm embrace of a song merging sense of place and acknowledgement of the human quest for belonging).
While rooted in the folk/country tradition Mitchell’s songs reach into territory where naming genres would constrain them: songs in those wide- open spaces of vulnerability and heartache. These are spaces in which clarity of vocals is complemented by crisp production and accompaniment. Jenny Mitchell offers us an album of exquisite beauty borne of Aotearoa’s South that gives voice to the wisdom and yearning that can reside between the walls of the lives we build.
Robin Kearns
Forest House is out today on Civilians Buy the Album Here
