Artist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and engineer O'Neil began making music in the band Rodan. Over time, she has run the gamut of musical diversity, jumping from the crushing rock of Rodan to her folky duo Retsin, and from the elastic experimentalism of The Sonora Pine to the arty metal mania of King Cobra. O'Neil considers herself as much a noise artist as she is a songwriter, and while this new release is haunting and lovely, it's not easy listening. It's beauty music.
Review by Gregory McIntosh
As Tara Jane O'Neil's voice quavers though the opening of the shifting lament "Howl," a lilting summer ballad that exhibits a feel similar to that of an Americanized Fairport Convention, there is a shyness that emanates, but elements of bravery too, as if she's aware that she is about to divulge too much information but is unable to stop herself. By holding all of this under pressure, seemingly restraining the fullness of the possibilities, O'Neil expertly builds the momentum of her third long-player, You Sound, Reflect, by silently winding up all of this confused energy and then dropping it to split the chaos with razors of clarity. O'Neil's previous outings have all had tension and urgency baked in, but it is with You Sound, Reflect that she superbly constructs the cinematic feel of her songs to convey a storyline. Through warm guitars, hollow banjos, layered fiddles, lush vocals, samples, etc., O'Neil beautifully creates an environment for her lyrics to breathe and grow and create a display simultaneously modest and showy, but most importantly, a deep emotional landscape to be lost in. The lovely opening instrumental, "Take the Waking," unfolds with keyboard and percussive guitar loops underneath warm and bright decorative guitars and wordless vocals that churn the sound into a confusing dichotomy: sweet and sinister. It is a perfect opener since the majority of the record flirts with both adjectives, dispensing a lovely melody here followed by a disturbing turn of phrase there, while somehow maintaining a fragile balance between the two. Via this balance, O'Neil inexplicably embodies an emotional side that, like all well-conceived art, brings to light the fascination with conflict and resolve inherent in the human condition, but what sets You Sound, Reflect apart from so many recordings is its ambition in covering so much ground instead of closing in on the small details of a conflict, such as the classic songwriter's topic of unrequited love. O'Neil weaves in and out of her variances the same way she, or anyone, might spend an afternoon contemplating the fortunes and misfortunes of the past, recognizing the turbulences and reporting on them, but refusing to dwell too much. The result is a very human, honest recording. Perhaps it is pompous to intellectualize You Sound, Reflect in this way, but it is a conundrum in that it is such an artsy yet breezy and accessible affair, difficult to pin down by only mentioning the technicalities of its makeup.
Tara Jane O'Neil
You Sound, Reflect
[Quarterstick 2004]
Rating: 7.4
You Sound, Reflect is not the sort of album that announces its presence with a demonstrative flourish or bombastic clatter. If anything, it's just as likely that you can put on this CD, listen to it, and not remember anything about it once it's finished. Even when paying close attention, it has a drunken dreamlike quality that can make even the firmest grip slip. Tara Jane O'Neil's songs are much like her singing voice-- understated, quiet but not timid, pretty but shaded with a wearying sadness. She sings the way people talk to themselves when asleep. These qualities work for and against her on this record.
From the first moments of opening instrumental "Take the Waking", the tone is set-- pretty stretches of wordless singing collide with loud hesitant amplified guitars. When it works-- as on gorgeous lullabies like "Without Push" or "The Poisoned Mine"-- O'Neil's plaintive whispers and words meld perfectly with the electro-acoustic backdrops. When things falter-- as on a rusting creaky track like "Howl" or the stumbling "Love Song Long"-- the effect is less enchanting than disorienting and disconcerting. More successful is the rustic crawl of "Known Perils" and the insistent wet echoes of "Famous Yellow Belly". Interspersed between the actual songs are brief interludes running the gamut from shy and introspective (the electronic burbling of "Tracer") to pensive and ominous (the banjo-flecked "I Call You").
Even on the less successful tracks, there are moments to savor, such as the off-center harmonies of "Howl", and the looped violins transformed into buzzing songbirds on "Love Song Long". It's a credit to O'Neil's skills that such moments of transparent studio manipulation actually help in establishing the provincial atmosphere of this album, a mood reinforced by repeating a melodic phrase from "The Poisoned Mine" in the final track. This mixture of technology and rustic elements gels into an organic whole, approximating the creak of a porch swing through relays and circuits. For those interested in getting a closer look at the stitches, you'll want to listen to Bones, a odds and ends collection released around the time of You Sound, Reflect.
-David Raposa, February 16, 2005
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