April 19, 2006 - 4:33 PM

Ode to Sarah Harmer

Oh Sarah Harmer, how I adore thee. You with your voice, slightly worn yet still beautiful; lived-in, like a cozy, homey cabin in the forest hills, the maples and pines and birches playing tag in the yard. There is comfort there, in the sylvan and serene, but it can still cut through like a chilling breeze off the mountain ridges. Mmmm, Sarah Harmer, your voice is nature and simplicity.

It is a storyteller's voice, maybe the friend who you love to listen to as she recreates details from the day before, the season before, the lifetime ago. You sit there, sipping your cup of coffee, looking out the window and making up lives for the people walking by, and she recounts tales of the mundane, or gives the nitty gritty of the urbane, and it's a pleasure.

Or maybe it's the voice of the matriarch, children and family gathered around as the hearth blazes, and old stories are spun, ancient history is unraveled, forgotten episodes are patched together.

It's intimate, knowing, relatable, heartfelt, genuine. The voice. And the stories.

I am so glad that I ponied up the 20+ bucks to see Sarah on Saturday at the Knitting Factory. It turned out to be one of the most satisfying experiences of my recent memory. As I've written here before, her solo debut, "You Were Here", was my favorite album from 2000. I've also mentioned in passing how I saw her that spring in Boston while she was doing a little tour with fellow unknown Canadians Sarah Slean and Feist.

Slean, who had the most name recognition at the time, was touring behind her last independent album before she dove into the world of major labels. Feist had played guitar for the group By Divine Right, but was then supporting her independent solo debut. Harmer was shopping her own solo debut of which she'd printed up a limited number of promo copies (I think I have number 241) after putting out several albums fronting the band Weeping Tile. Later that year, she would sign to Rounder Records and slowly gain a decent fanbase in the U.S, with "You Were Here" getting much critical acclaim and deserved airplay.

It's interesting to me that, four years later, Slean would release my favorite album of 2004, and Feist would have her own major label debut that would land in my top 8, then break-out into a cult phenomenon in 2005. Meanwhile, Harmer, would release a second album (All of Our Names) that would steadily grow on me, then disappear off my radar until this year. Then she would return with a vengeance to knock me out of my socks.

Sarah Harmer had a band of friends backing her up, the same band with whom she bonded while working out arrangements and recordings of the tunes on her latest release "I'm A Mountain". This is an album that fully realizes Sarah's love of bluegrass and country that has only dotted her previous major releases. With her on stage was a guitarist who alternated between mandolin, acoustic guitar, and electric; a double bassist who contributed on vocals; a backing vocalist who also played the Rhodes electric keyboard; and a clarinetist and a fiddler who both did triple duties on the Rhodes as well as an accordion. Some seriously talented musicians.

They were able to fill out the nearly two hour set with an almost equal mix of songs from Sarah's three solo albums. Everything was a highlight, pretty much. If I had to pick just one moment that made the show stellar, it would have to be the last song of their set, Lodestar. It's a 5 minute song that begins quietly, driven by an acoustic guitar and subtle accompaniment from a stringed instrument and an electric guitar before switching gears halfway through into a rocking quasi chamber-piece. It was at this transition that Sarah stepped away from her mic, put down her guitar, and set herself down at the drum set which had gone unmanned during the entire show. The band continued playing, she picked up the beat, and they moved into the second half seamlessly. It was a beautiful piece of choreography that caught the audience off guard, but everyone cheered when it happened, and the final part just flat out rocked.

There were a lot of people in the audience. There were no chairs. I was sore at the end. And I spilled some beer on me. But none of that mattered. The show was better than staring directly at a solar eclipse. Oh yeah. I said it. BETTER.

*******
Just for sharing, here are some of my favorite lyrics of Ms. Harmer's. It's to a song called "The Hideout". Copyright and all are, of course, hers.

"look at that green
out through the screen
after a quick rain came
so fast that
there wasn't time
to roll up the windows
and pull the clothes down off the line
but i don't care
it was so dry
and the grass is happy
and i think 'so am i'
'cause i'm through thinking about you"

Now Listening To : iPod: Sarah Harmer- I'm a Mountain
Random Thought : A couple people I met at the Amherst thing on Thursday ended up standing next to me at the show. Neat.

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