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Heather Leigh, "Pot Baby"
Before I found the solo releases of Heather Leigh, the only solo pedal steel player I was familiar with was American Music Club’s Bruce Kaphan. Where he built a bed of sound and fleshed out songs with single colour washes of sound, Leigh is an all-around more powerful, complex, and unreserved player. This is not only a reinvention of the instrument, a yanking from its subtle country roots, but also her best recorded work to date.
As gorgeous a release as this indisputably is, I’m still a bit wary of the migraine / lysergic coloured-in cover art. The photograph of Heather sitting in an open plan, gas powered outhouse isn’t as stunningly and intensely simple as her last LP cover. This is hardly a cause for complaint though as the rest of the packaging is pretty and simply done with a delicate looking hand numbered / stamped inlay.
Her instrument’s aircraft birth drones fold and refold into a fairground frenzied alarm creating a positively blatant melody. By ragging out NY police sirens with her nails, the centre of attention slips easily between the two. Leigh’s trademark keen wails perforate the inflamed strained sound woozily creating vertigo tingles through the head. Like an inverse helter skelter the skittering sparks flit from the edge of a wall of lace and thunder. In parts of both the songs on Pot Baby her vocals have a more human, less obscured quality which slips between the higher and lower registers.
As these pedal engorgings die down into little thunders and emissions, a beautiful harmonica part begins. This is an incredible juxtaposition of sounds and styles, as drone improve hits the lone evening porch American folk sound. One is a muddied and restless mass of scrambled EQ and the other a sweetly free of effects and conventionally tuneful, fresh and human melody. An obvious pointer that I’m in love with a release is when I find myself wasting overcast afternoon’s imagining fantasy releases like a Heather Leigh solo harmonica CDR.
The return of the pedal steel sees notes turn crooked and becoming bent as seen through murky turbulent water. Her fingers must’ve been clawing and clambering over the steely strings to produce choppy chimes like these. As the piece progresses the music begins to take on the form of soft guitar work. The lonesome single notes and pale vocal seem like half-processed snapshots revealing a beauty sometimes unheard above or clearly through the squalls and thousand and one torrent of tones.
The second untitled piece begins as a lone vocal solo work, but soon she manipulates the music into an off kilter piano. The sound moves slowly as if on an angle, like taking the first curve of a mobius musical curve. Seemingly determined to keep out of the red, the queasy shaking sound begins to shape up like a furiously shaken hand held am radio. Soon slowing up, it becomes like a gorgeous desert dawn horizon loop. This is road music; music for the end of the road. For the first time on this CDR her steel shearing vocals make her sound like she’s capable of evil deeds. Razored vocals and bursts of operatic lines are doubled up and lag behind each other, leaving a strangled aura.
This release expands upon her second album, Give the Ashes to the Indians, and moves the sonic possibilities of a Heather Leigh release forwards several million miles. Her discography is now essential.
Her instrument’s aircraft birth drones fold and refold into a fairground frenzied alarm creating a positively blatant melody. By ragging out NY police sirens with her nails, the centre of attention slips easily between the two. Leigh’s trademark keen wails perforate the inflamed strained sound woozily creating vertigo tingles through the head. Like an inverse helter skelter the skittering sparks flit from the edge of a wall of lace and thunder. In parts of both the songs on Pot Baby her vocals have a more human, less obscured quality which slips between the higher and lower registers.
As these pedal engorgings die down into little thunders and emissions, a beautiful harmonica part begins. This is an incredible juxtaposition of sounds and styles, as drone improve hits the lone evening porch American folk sound. One is a muddied and restless mass of scrambled EQ and the other a sweetly free of effects and conventionally tuneful, fresh and human melody. An obvious pointer that I’m in love with a release is when I find myself wasting overcast afternoon’s imagining fantasy releases like a Heather Leigh solo harmonica CDR.
The return of the pedal steel sees notes turn crooked and becoming bent as seen through murky turbulent water. Her fingers must’ve been clawing and clambering over the steely strings to produce choppy chimes like these. As the piece progresses the music begins to take on the form of soft guitar work. The lonesome single notes and pale vocal seem like half-processed snapshots revealing a beauty sometimes unheard above or clearly through the squalls and thousand and one torrent of tones.
The second untitled piece begins as a lone vocal solo work, but soon she manipulates the music into an off kilter piano. The sound moves slowly as if on an angle, like taking the first curve of a mobius musical curve. Seemingly determined to keep out of the red, the queasy shaking sound begins to shape up like a furiously shaken hand held am radio. Soon slowing up, it becomes like a gorgeous desert dawn horizon loop. This is road music; music for the end of the road. For the first time on this CDR her steel shearing vocals make her sound like she’s capable of evil deeds. Razored vocals and bursts of operatic lines are doubled up and lag behind each other, leaving a strangled aura.
This release expands upon her second album, Give the Ashes to the Indians, and moves the sonic possibilities of a Heather Leigh release forwards several million miles. Her discography is now essential.
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