AVIA GARDNER

More than tongue can tell

CD, intr_version

After the return of the electric guitar into electronic music, is this also the singer/songwriter returning to electronic music? I can think of a few, especially female songwriters, who have released great albums that could have been great instrumental electronica records if the vocals were left off as well as great songwriter albums if the electronics were replaced by the traditional concept of an acoustic guitar. (And no, Vashti Bunyan doesn’t count, even if she released a record on Fat Cat.) Together with the new album by Desormais it seems as if intr_version and Mitchell Akiyama were taking turns towards more “traditional” and analogue sources of sounds. I don’t care as long as he doesn’t lose that warm and organic atmosphere that I so much embraced back when I first heard “if night is a weed …” and also on the other releases on intr_version (in the foreground especially Vitamins For You and Joshua Treble – who is Tony Boggs by the way, see below - and of course Desormais.) And it is this kind of warmth and deeply emotional quality that spreads through this small album as well and makes it so kind and endearing to the heart. Even during the more edgy and unruly tracks there is that special fragile gentleness.

Take for instance a song like “Dread and dreaming”: the electronic noise hisses in the background like crickets while an old banjo strums away some melancholic cords and Robertson’s voice lingers in midair in an atmosphere that makes you think of some early night, backporch wailing away of time. The violin setting in during the second part to accentuate the chords on the banjo makes the imagery complete. The duo is able to make it even more nostalgic, lost in thought and pensive at some other points, using piano and saxophones next to the computers to spread their unique soundscapes that the songs lay on. At times the electronic sounds – I’d call them noise but for one these sounds are very soft and reduced and for second it should be time we stopped regarding everything outside harmonious frequencies as noise – are more in the foreground, at other times the arrangements seem as traditional as they could get.

Even when there is only some brushed drums, bass, piano and singing a certain timeless roughness persists in the recording that sets Avia Gardner apart from the polished blandness of music recorded by Norah Jones, to name a very widely known million selling singer. At times its not more than these side effects of the production process that make the difference between real alternatives and just another marketing ploy. The caterwauling violins here and there and some of the more mangy aspects of the soundscapes on “more than tongue can tell” make sure of this anyway. It is also remarkable how naturally the integration of more abstract and most organic one comes off, so much actually, that you start to wonder if it is possible to tell them both apart at all. And really, it shouldn’t be. For a completely new version of folk music this is as good as it might get this year but with this level I am already content and highly pleased even if there is nothing new happening for the next decade.

This mini-album contains five songs plus two remixes (one of a song contained on here and one other) by Tony Boggs, who is the other half of Desormais. In these remixes Boggs uses a very cubist approach, placing field recordings next to the songs and leaving them intact for a while, before starting to deconstruct them by building into them. Amongst the players sharing on the record there is also Vitamins for you and Matthew Akiyama. I am convinced that this closeness and longlasting relations between the players – both as friends and artistically – has done its fair part of adding to the intimate and delicate atmosphere on the record. Like old friends sharing a comfortable moment of silence together on an abandoned couch out in the backyard watching the sunset.

Edit: Mitchell Akiyama wrote to say that the electronic sounds that sound a lot like crickets actually are the sounds of crickets. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. I see Avia Gardner in front of my inner eye as they settle down on a backporch, stare into the dawn and then start to let some songs flow, recording whatever seems worthwhile. I have spent quite some time listening to crickets in the summer, which is as ambient as you can get. Warm summer evening, a cool beer, cricket sounds and I started missing my guitar.