Everyone knows about London buses, they drive around in packs, so people waiting for them are stood in the rain for hours and then a load turn up at once! I feel something like that this week as I have been listening to (and am now reviewing) four albums in one of my very favourite series, ‘The Magnolia Sessions’. In fairness, they turned up over a period of time, but I have now put them side by side to review them all together. For those who have not come across these before, these are live sets recorded under an old magnolia tree in the backyard of Anti-Corp/Black Matter Mastering headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee, by owner Dan Emery.
Cohen started training in ballet at the age of three, with her childhood also being packed full of folk dance and musical theatre until at the age of fourteen she discovered the world of aerial arts, since when she has been a principal performer and choreographer. In 2010 she met Jason Dea West and embraced her long-standing desire to learn an instrument to accompany her songwriting, and they have made music and toured extensively with Jason Dea West as Intuitive Compass. This session finds Cohen accompanying herself on guitar or accordion, while Brice Clayborne Clark joined on some numbers on fiddle.
One thing which always makes these sessions stand out is not only that there are no overdubs or audience, but also there are thousands of additional players with cicadas making their presence felt, and they were certainly there in numbers that night. One thing I found quite strange about this release, is that while many of the releases in this series takes us back in time when all that mattered were the songs, the vocals and the accompaniment with no trickery, this is an album which actually sounds as if it was recorded in the 1920’s as opposed to the 2020’s. I am sure this is due to Cohen’s vocal style as it sounds really old, and I don’t mean in the age of the performer but in the way it is being developed. In many ways she reminds me of Gary Miller (The Whiskey Priests) who sang in a traditional style which was associated with the coal mines and very different indeed to anything else around today.
All Dan needs to do is add some scratches here and there, and we could be listening to a long-lost 78, as opposed to something which has been recorded by stage of the art equipment. This is something to be enjoyed late at night on headphones, sat outside looking at the Milky Way and be transported to a time and place which no longer exists. Truly magical.
Rating: 8/10
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