Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer – Green Frog – Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer at The Green Frog

Friday, March 22nd

A standing room only crowd at the Green Frog, silent, reverent, anticipatory. On stage, opener Misty Flowers is in the middle of a plaintive haiku set, six string meditations echoing Joni Mitchell, an almost spiritual presence for the evening.

James Hardesty introduces two of his most favorite performers, Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer. Unassuming and natural onstage, they begin with a song from their recently released CD, Child Ballads. What strikes one immediately is Anais’ voice: unique in timbre and tone, paradoxically delicate and strong, a thing beautiful and ancient, what you imagine the seer Cassandra to have sounded like. Jefferson harmonizes around Anais, at times in an even higher register, then right there beside her. Together they enrapture the crowd into a religious silence. Their musical compatibility reminds me of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, singing inside each other wounds and laughter.

The Child Ballads are from a collection of traditional English and Scottish popular folk ballads from the Francis James Child collection. Anais and Jefferson adapted seven of them for two guitars. The result is haunting and sublime. Their guitars braid melodic lines through each other; unusual tunings evoking English Renaissance compositions; images of stone taverns on dark nights; these ballads having been spun out of ancient myth and legend.

In between each song, Jefferson sets the theme of the ballad for the crowd, telling about witches and jealous mothers, curses and wax babies, sister maidens beguiling young travelers, sailing ships and lost loves. All the characters seem simultaneously strange and familiar. Ghosts from fairy tales and archetypes from dreams.

They break from the Child Ballads to play a handful of their own songs, Jefferson playing his elegiac, The Ragged World We Spanned, building it before the crowd like a quiet cathedral: “We set out for allegory on a ship of the damned.” And Anais played the stunning, Young Man in America:

There's a hollow in my bones
Make me cry and carry on
Make the foam fly from my tongue
Make me want what I want
Another wayward son
Waiting on oblivion

After hearing the Child Ballads, much of the imagery of their earlier work is more accessible, the traditional songs providing a thematic bridge back into each of their catalogues. Young Man in America feels less disquieting and more familiar, the language suddenly translated through the new/old context.

The crowd, now a true audience - all of us - is deeply appreciative and respectful. It is one of those shows that marries performer to space in the most harmonious manner possible. Anais and Jefferson return for an a cappella encore, standing off to the side of the microphones, singing together, purely, quietly and intimately. The music dances there amidst the hushed presence of the room, reminding us all of  why it exists in the first place.

This review originally appeared in What's Up!

Jeffrey Foucault - Redlight - September 8, 2012

Jeffrey Foucault - Redlight

September 8, 2012

A few Saturdays back I was walking past the Redlight on the way home and, noting there was space at the bar, decided to go on in and have a couple of drinks. I vaguely remembered that someone named Foucault was playing there. I amused myself for a moment imagining what a post-structuralist folk singer might sound like. A quick online check revealed that Jeffrey Foucault, no relation to the French philosopher, was performing. 

The Redlight is always a good space for intimate shows. Chairs and tables were arranged in a circle around Foucault, who performed without amplification. An appreciative group had gathered around him. Foucault, who grew up in Whitewater, Wisconsin and spent Sundays either going to church or ice fishing (according to his press release), played with a quiet intensity, engaging audience in dialogue and telling amusing anecdotes between songs. In an interview during the Sound Pass Sessions, Foucault spoke of the “magic number for a room” as being the required number of people in the audience to get a feedback look and establish a connection, to have a sense of community. It was clear that the magic number had been reached on this evening. Everyone there felt as if there were witness to a special performance. 

Foucault’s voice has a warm lived-in quality that captures your attention. His songwriting skills, as evidenced on songs such as One for Sorrow and Ghost Repeater, are extraordinary, as is his guitar playing. You sense a narrative thread weaving through his music. You listen closer with each new song to try to figure out its traces. His music explores some of the darker aspects of the 21^st century American Dream with an honesty and integrity to the Word. Think of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Anais Mitchell, Jay Farrar. Here’s hoping that the next time he comes through Bellingham, that magic number of his will be much higher. 

http://www.jeffreyfoucault.com/