Natalie Merchant - The Courage of Beauty

10,000 Maniacs were one of the most delicate and pleasing acts of the Eighties. Their distinctive folk-rock, made up of intimate ballads, understated arrangements and gentle melodies, stood in sharp contrast to the electronic pop in vogue at the time, embracing instead a soft-toned, acoustic brand of singer-songwriting that would only come into fashion in the following decade. Natalie Merchant – born to the children of Irish and Sicilian immigrants (the surname Merchant comes from the original Italian "Mercante") – was the voice and the mastermind of that band, formed in Jamestown, New York, at the start of the Eighties.

At the outset, the band's lineup (its name taken from a horror film of the Sixties) was a six-piece, including – besides a seventeen-year-old Merchant, still a student at Jamestown Community College – Dennis Drew on keyboards, Robert Buck and John Lombardo on guitars, Steven Gustafson on bass and Jerome Augustyniak on drums.

After the EP Human Conflict Number Five (1982), which featured their first success, "Tension", a year later 10,000 Maniacs released their debut album Secrets Of The I Ching, in which Merchant's personality already begins to come through, as the author of erudite, polished ballads. Their alchemy is an atmospheric, frugal folk-pop, built on Dennis Drew's keyboards with a whiff of wave, and on the jangling guitars of Robert Buck and John Lombardo, who co-wrote the songs with Merchant, whose enchanting voice provides the real added value.

Released in 1983 by Mark in the United States and in 1984 by Press in Britain, the album became a hit specifically in this second edition on the UK indie charts, propelled by John Peel, who played it on heavy rotation on his show on BBC Radio 1, calling it "the finest record of the year".

Not yet fully in command of her own abilities, Natalie Merchant nevertheless managed to turn out songs of delicate elegance, such as the first version of "Grey Victory" (with a magnificent jingle-jangle worthy of Rem), the delicate "Tension", the evocative "The Latin One" and the more aggressive "My Mother The War", with searing guitars tinged with psychedelia – tracks that would later be reworked in new versions on the following album – as well as the outgoing, infectious "Daktari" and the evocative "Death Of Manolete", which, together with a few rawer moments, reveal a wealth of influences and a compositional range that already hinted at the full talent of these new pioneers of American college rock.

Sulla Sedia dei desideri

But it's with the follow-up The Wishing Chair (1985) that the Jamestown band makes its definitive leap in quality. For the occasion, Natalie and co. go all out: they fly to London, to the court of a British folk guru like Joe Boyd, already the deus ex machina behind Fairport Convention, Incredible String Band, Nick Drake and John Martyn, and, in that very same 1985, the man behind "Fables of the Reconstruction" by R.E.M., standard-bearers of the college-rock scene then thriving in America, of which the Maniacs themselves would become leading exponents.

And Merchant finally takes off as a songwriter, painting existentialist frescoes with the lyricism of an Emily Dickinson of pop. These are collages of impressions and pastel-toned snapshots of a provincial America, hazy and undefined, slipping away from the listener's gaze, just like the landscape seen through the train windows of "Can't Ignore The Train", a concentrate of sweetness and melancholy in jangle-pop form, with a delicious melody, sung in the barest thread of a voice, painting a rural watercolor.

American and English folk and pop blend inextricably, for a fresh and deeply personal result that shines through the beauty of every single song, from the blazing "Scorpio Rising", branded by Buck's searing solo, to Ireland tinged with country colors in the reworking of the medieval-flavored traditional "Just As The Tide Was A Flowing", from the mandolin of "Everyone A Puzzle Lover" (which would teach something to the future R.E.M. of "Out Of Time") to the tender lyricism of ballads like "Lilydale" and "Grey Victory" (with a lovely interplay between Drew's organ and Buck's electric guitar, sublimating the jangly groove).

The tension of post-punk hasn't vanished, it's just been toned down, vibrating just beneath the surface in the grooves of "The Colonial Wing", sung by Merchant with the intensity of a Janis Joplin, or in the superb "My Mother The War", stamped by an acidic guitar suspended between Velvet-esque echoes and Paisley Underground. The farewell, with the dreamy waltz of "Arbor Day", paints yet another landscape of a bucolic, remote America. Sitting, in spirit, on the Wishing Chair, dreaming of an escape from everyday routine, from those thirty, thirty, thirty afternoons.

The Wishing Chair is one long, delicate shiver, fully immersed in the most melancholic mood of the Eighties (the mood of bands like R.E.M., Lone Justice, Smiths, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, China Crisis and much of the indie-pop to come) yet one that renews a frugal austerity and a melodic enchantment worthy of the best Fairport Convention (not by chance, produced by Boyd himself).

A tribe in the spotlight

If up to that point the band had been built mainly on the Lombardo-Merchant partnership, authors of nearly all the songs, for the next record, with Lombardo's departure, it's Natalie who fully takes the reins of the group, leaning above all on Buck's finely chiseled guitar work.

An album in perfect balance between the band's almost roots beginnings, comparable to the more folk-rock side of R.E.M., and the decidedly poppier turn of the records that followed, In My Tribe (1987) establishes 10,000 Maniacs as an international act, showcasing Merchant's clear, aching vocals, whose magnificent voice brings to life songs that are simple and ethereal, yet always hopelessly melancholic. Starting with the opener "What's The Matter Here", introduced by a soft layer of guitars and elevated by the vocalist's supple singing, as she recounts a harrowing story of child abuse that a mother cannot bring herself to report (“And I want to say, ‘Hi’/ Want to say/ ‘What’s the matter here?’/ But I don’t dare say”). Another emotional peak of the record is the midtempo "Like The Weather", built entirely on the close dialogue between Merchant's voice and Buck's guitar, chasing each other along the bridge before coming together in the chorus melody; a song that seems lighthearted on the surface, but is actually steeped in a streak of romantic pessimism (“The color of the sky is grey as I can see through the blinds/ Lift my head from the pillow and then fall again/ Shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather/ A quiver in my voice as if I might cry”).

Merchant's lyrical imagery remains very wide-ranging, spanning from grim social themes (alcoholism, child abuse, illiteracy) to scattered musings, even dedicated to the mother of the author of "On The Road" (the delightful "Hey Jack Kerouac", one of the best melodies of the bunch), from the graceful folk-pop tales of "Cherry Tree" and "The Painted Desert" to the pacifist yearning of the cover of "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens (which the band would later have removed from the CD version, after comments by the singer-songwriter, who had since converted and become "Yusuf Islam", deemed not unsympathetic to the fatwa against Salman Rushdie).

Michael Stipe, at the time rumored to be Natalie's partner, appears on backing vocals in "A Campfire Song", and the R.E.M. influence remains palpable in the notes of "Gun Shy" and in the mandolin of "City Of Angels", while Caribbean scents surface in "My Sister Rose".

But also shining are the aching lullaby "Don't Talk", cradled on a bed of electric guitars (and revisited in an even more vibrant version on the 1993 Unplugged), and the closing, exquisitely delicate "Verdi Cries", an acoustic marvel for violin, cello and piano, with Merchant's voice reaching new heights of moving intensity.

In My Tribe would reach No. 37 on the Billboard 200, cementing the band's fame in Europe as well.

The follow-up Blind Man's Zoo (1989), decidedly poppier than its predecessors, shows a few signs of faltering in the songwriting (the needlessly noisy "Headstrong", the overwrought "You Happy Puppet"), but still delivers a handful of top-class songs, starting with the opener "Eat For Two", an aching reflection from a teenage mother with lyrics of unusual rawness ("Dream child in my head/ in a nightmare born in a borrowed bed"), and the single "Trouble Me", another thoroughly pleasant midtempo that brings the band back toward the Wishing Chair, a land of suspended melancholy where one can also savor the dewy melodiousness of "Dust Bowl" and "The Lion's Share", two ballads chiseled with the usual crystalline grace.

And while "Please Forgive Us" polishes up the jangle guitars in service of a remarkably far-sighted invective that takes the Iran-Contra scandal as its starting point to cast a shadow over decades of future US interventionist policy ("to justify murder by their fighters for freedom"), closing the circle is another feat, the acoustic "Jubilee", arranged for arpeggiated guitar, harp and string quartet, with lyrics steeped in spirituality and intricate biblical references.

Still doubly tied to country and folk tradition (and not only American), at times close to the more extroverted side of R.E.M., the album once again wins over critics and audiences alike, climbing even higher on the charts on both sides of the Atlantic (No. 13 on the American charts, No. 18 on the British ones).

Pop in Eden

Three years later, 10,000 Maniacs return with Our Time In Eden, an album that revisits the typical ingredients of their sound (the jangle guitars, the crisp electric organ, the propulsive drums, plus the leader's ever-harmonious vocals), and revives their fortunes thanks to some fresh, seductive moments, such as the ouverture of "Noah's Dove", built more on atmosphere and mood than on melody, the ballad "Stockton Gala Days", still in the vein of Rem, the loose-limbed r'n'b of "Few And Far Between" and "Candy Everybody Wants", marked by an unusual horn section, as well as the darker, more jagged "I'm Not The Man", which closes the collection in a knot of melancholy.

But what will really drive the album up the charts (it will sell two million copies within a few years) is above all the fragrant melodic blend of "These Are The Days", which will also remain one of their biggest hits, with lyrics that — for once — are full of hope and optimism: “These are the days you’ll remember/ Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this/ And as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky/ It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you”.

Worth noting is the presence, on three tracks ("Stockton Gala Days", "Jezebel" and "How You've Grown"), of Mary Ramsey on viola, the artist who will in fact replace (so to speak) Natalie Merchant in the band's second, weary phase.

At the peak of her creativity, in fact, Merchant leaves 10,000 Maniacs, celebrating her final act with the band on the hugely successful live album Mtv Unplugged (1993), bolstered by new, winning versions of their classics (from an "Eat For Two" steeped in Middle Eastern spice to a more muted "Hey Jack Kerouac", via a "What's the Matter Here?" embellished by a central guitar solo) as well as an excellent cover of the Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith evergreen "Because The Night".

Mtv Unplugged will surprisingly become their best-selling album, but it will also, in effect, mark their swan song.

The Long Goodbye

Despite the enormous loss, 10,000 Maniacs press on tirelessly with the returning John Lombardo and violinist Mary Ramsey now a permanent fixture, releasing Love Among The Ruins (1997), an album that inevitably bears the marks of the trauma. Ramsey does her best not to make listeners miss Merchant's charisma, but her thin falsetto fails to get autumnal ballads like "Piles Of Dead Leaves" and "Rainy Day" off the ground, managing instead to shine more effectively on the pianistic novelty of "A Room For Everything" and amid the swirling Hammond organ of "Shining Light", one of the most classically Maniacs-sounding tracks, complete with a lively rhythm section.

The real surprise, however, is the unpredictable cover of Roxy Music's "More Than This", which the band turns upside down with mandolin (Buck) and radiant vocal flourishes (Ramsey).

But there's no denying that Love Among The Ruins represents a step backward for the former American college band, which without Merchant seems to have lost its soul too.

Trying to strike while the iron is hot (or rather, not yet entirely cold), the "new" 10,000 Maniacs release The Earth Pressed Flat (1999) two years later, a largely pointless album that contains a few outtakes from the previous LP, credited both to the band and to their individual authors for copyright reasons.

Worth mentioning at least is the title track, yet another refreshing slice of jangle-pop brushed with organ and Ramsey's gentle voice, along with a couple of other solidly crafted melodic numbers, such as "On And On (Mersey Tune)" and "Hidden In My Heart", while the cover of Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" manages at once to make listeners miss both the Fairport Convention vocalist herself and the thought of how Natalie Merchant's voice might have rendered it. A half-hearted, tedious experiment, almost as much as the guitar fuzz of "Somebody's Heaven".

At this point, the Maniacs' fate seems truly sealed. All the more so since Robert Buck, sadly, passes away in 2000, at just 42, from a serious liver disease.

The silence is broken only by Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings (2004), a double compilation released by Elektra/Asylum/Rhino Records featuring 31 digitally remastered songs, four of them demos and one previously unreleased; the second disc, meanwhile, gathers B-sides and outtakes dug up from across the band's career, including several covers, among them Jackson Browne's "These Days" and Tom Waits' "I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You".

Yet, thirteen years later, a new chapter emerges, titled Music From The Motion Picture (2013), credited to an even more overhauled lineup, in which Lombardo exits the scene once again and Jeff Erickson (guitars and lead male vocals) steps in, alongside Mary Ramsey on vocals, Jerome Augustyniak on drums, Dennis Drew on keyboards and Steve Gustafson on bass.

Nonetheless, the sound of the "new" Maniacs remains firmly anchored in the past, somewhere between folk-rock and jangle-pop. The only real surprises are the reggae cadences of "It's A Beautiful Life" and the vaguely spectral mood of "Fine Line". The rest feels like a collection of those clumsy replicas of artworks you'd find in some old antique shop: a simply dated assortment, without even a trace left of the expressive urgency that had set the American band's golden era alight.

The final, unlikely release under the 10,000 Maniacs name is Twice Told Tales (2015), a collection of traditional folk songs from the British Isles, strongly championed by the returning John Lombardo, who sent the rest of the band members a cassette tape of his favorite songs, convincing them to join forces with fans to make the album happen via the crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic. Thanks also to the support of producer Armand John Petri, at the band's side since 1991, the project got off the ground, catering almost exclusively to the most die-hard aficionados. The only new track on the tracklist is the brief a cappella folk interlude "The Song Of Wandering Aengus".

An album entirely sui generis within the band's discography, then, but at least useful for rediscovering a wealth of sounds and melodies submerged in the mists of time, while we wait to find out what will become of 10,000 Maniacs (or whatever's left of them).

Natalie Runs Solo

Meanwhile, Natalie Merchant embarks on a solo career that will prove rich with substance, starting with Tigerlily (named after a Chinese lily), the album released in 1995 that launches her into the pantheon of female folk-rock, following in the footsteps of the genre's greatest names, from Carole King to Joni Mitchell.

Merchant crafts erudite, socially conscious songs that highlight her complex lyrics and her increasingly evocative singing: a very "guttural" and austere contralto, with which she manages to tell stories of great emotional impact. Like "Beloved Wife", a hushed, contrite reflection on the death of a wife after fifty years of marriage, or the poignant "River", an ode for piano and drums (with Peter Yanowitz's brushwork to the fore) in memory of actor River Phoenix, who died at just 23, or again "I May Know The Word", the album's emotional zenith, in which Merchant delivers a sorrowful, profound confession set to the delicate sound of guitar and organ.

If Natalie's lyrics and voice remain the main course, the musical setting is no less compelling: the opening "San Andreas Fault", for instance, offers a fine duel between John Holbrook's and Matt Henderson's electric guitars, which, combined with Randy Grant's percussion, support Merchant's clear, supple voice over a slow melody; "Wonder" raises the tempo and the adrenaline, thanks to Jennifer Turner's biting, insistent electric guitar solos (the same guitarist who paints the tender solo on "I May Know The World"); it's Katell Keineg's backing vocals, meanwhile, that power the other electric tour de force "Carnival", after the percussive intro courtesy of A. L. Guevarra, who also features on the sunny, acoustic "Where I Go".

What settles the debt owed to the Maniacs' lesson, besides the aforementioned "River", is above all "Jealousy", with its breezy, beguiling swagger and its elegant textures, chiseled around guest Eric Schenkman's electric guitar and John Holbrook's organ flourishes.

Also thanks to a handful of musicians and sessionmen of undoubted caliber, Tigerlily demonstrates how Natalie Merchant's talent can transcend her experience with the Maniacs, opening a new sonic chapter for the former student-frontgirl from Jamestown.

Ever more austere and sensitive, refined and biting, the American singer-songwriter further hones her style on the following Ophelia (1998), where a richer production and a fuller sound are immediately apparent, amid layers of organ, choirs, exotic percussion and Daniel Lanois's guitar. Yet the pure class of the Jamestown singer-songwriter remains intact, as she deftly navigates between solemn ballads like the R.E.M.-esque "My Skin", with its aching piano and prominent cello, the melancholy "Frozen Charlotte" (featuring Karen Peris of Innocence Mission) and a "Life Is Sweet" that carries almost the same intensity as the song of the same name by Maria McKee, with its bitter chorus ("Life is sweet in spite of the misery").

But there's no shortage of catchy hooks either, like the "na na na na" of the spirited single "Kind & Generous", or the one that sends "Break Your Heart" soaring ("People ruthless, people cruel/ The damage that some people do… it's enough to make you lose your mind").

The real substance of the album, however, lies mainly in its more reflective moments, like the dramatic title track (which also features the unexpected participation of Carmen Consoli), the piano-driven ode "Thick As Thieves", in which Merchant points a sarcastic finger at the chaos of the new millennium ("The chaos of the millennium and the falling out of the doomsday crowd"), and the anguished farewell of "King Of May", built on a folk melody with an old-fashioned flavor.

Compared to the 10,000 Maniacs era, the new wave sonorities have all but disappeared, giving way to an acoustic singer-songwriter approach that draws on a set of instruments as rich as it is understated: cello, organ, piano, French horn, trumpet, viola, violin.

Her poetic, provocative lyrics have drawn comparisons more to literary figures than to musicians ("the Emily Dickinson or Flannery O'Connor of pop"). Merchant also continues to engage in numerous civil causes, defending animal rights, supporting the homeless and fighting domestic violence. At the heart of her stories is always the depiction of a hidden, secret feminine world, one that reveals both its vulnerability and its strength. "Writing is essential for me," says the Jamestown singer-songwriter. "Reading books is an inexhaustible source of ideas. My two reference writers are Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I love the way they tell stories, the way they show relationships between mothers and children, the way they shape characters. I've studied them to bring a bit of their talent into my songs."

Mother Earth Seen From America

Co-produced with T Bone Burnett (Elvis Costello, the Wallflowers, Sam Phillips, and the soundtrack of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"), Motherland (2001) ranges from folk ballads to reggae rhythms, from Arabic flavors to chamber orchestrations, from gospel hints to flashes of tango and flamenco. Natalie Merchant casts a political eye on America today. "The House Is On Fire", for instance, is a metaphor for the United States. The lyrics were written during the anti-globalization protests in Seattle and the scandal over the vote count during the Florida election runoff. But the lyrics - read in light of later events - also become testimony to the anger of a wounded population that "wants to flee from reality, and doesn't realize that on September 11th America too had its Armageddon, its day of judgment." "The House Is On Fire" is carried by a mesmerizing arrangement of strings and Arabic-tinged horns and a reggae rhythm, with Natalie's vocalizing almost seeming to evoke Natacha Atlas.

The music on Motherland branches out into a series of musical directions, always keeping "root" sounds in the foreground, but not shying away from "ethnic" contaminations - as in the hint of tango in "The Worst Thing". There's no shortage of moments that recall 10,000 Maniacs, from the reflection on image-obsession in "Tell Yourself" (“Tell yourself that you’re not pretty/ Look at you, you’re beautiful… Tell yourself you’ll never be/ Like the anorexic beauties in the magazines/ Like a bargain basement Barbie Doll”) to the intense ballad "Just Can't Last". The foray into black music on "Build A Levee" is a pleasant surprise. And Merchant the deep narrator of personal stories returns to move us with the pained meditation of "Not In This Life" and the exhausted final invocation of "I'm Not Gonna Beg" ("Non ti supplicherò per nessuna cosa/ Non ti supplicherò per il tuo amore"), yet another proud, austere ballad that brings to mind the best of Joni Mitchell.

In the years that followed, Merchant disappeared from the scene, limiting herself to releasing just one covers album, The House Carpenter's Daughter (2003).

The age of maturity

Motherhood marked Natalie's 2000s, during which she gathered lullabies and nursery rhymes to put together an interracial folk music album, where childhood is the only universe. Leave Your Sleep (2010) boasts excellent vocal and instrumental performances. Clear and supple, Natalie's voice lends grace to every track. Take, for example, the elegance of the waltz on "Equestrienne", where the singer follows the grace of Rachel Field's poetry while the orchestra traces the figure of a young horsewoman in airy tones. Another example of her versatility comes through in the reggae of "Topsyturvey-World", which plays with the pleasant nonsense of William Brighty Rands' nursery rhyme.

Among the most notable tracks are "Griselda", a soul-blues-rock number carried by an effervescent horn ensemble, and "The Land Of Nod", based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Chinese Music Ensemble of New York on "The King Of China's Daughter" and the Klezmatics on the twists and turns of "The Dancing Bear" capture the album's universal spirit, between jazz flourishes and doo-wop on "Bleezer's Ice-Cream" and dixieland temptations on "The Blind Men And The Elephant"; the author's natural folk instinct emerges in a sequence of delightful ballads flirting with western sounds ("Calico Pie"), cajun traditions ("Adventures Of Isabel") and melancholy moods ("The Man In The Wilderness").

The lullaby influences are even more evident in two fine tracks: the first, "Sweet And A Lullaby", is a classic, brilliant two-voice folk piece led by accordion and violin, while the second, "The Walloping Window Blind", is an exuberant folk jig with fairy-tale, rustic tones. The swing of "The Janitor's Boy" and the whiff of cabaret in "The Sleepy Giant" are other surprising gems for those who know Merchant for her folk-rock glories; everything becomes harder to take in on a single listen - the blues shades of "The Peppery Man", the pastoral suggestions of "Autumn Lullaby" for harp and woodwind, and the endless harmonic weave of "Indian Names" are the result of a striking maturity.

The 26 songs of the album's full version give listeners something to reflect on and rejoice in. Take, for example, the delicate atmosphere of "Spring And Fall: To A Young Child", where, with poignant melancholy, the song tries to make the concept of death understandable to a child: the leaves, fluttering away out of sight, become a poetic device for an intense metaphor.

The Emily Dickinson of Jamestown has recently turned fifty. Her gorgeous raven hair has turned grey as her marriage to documentary filmmaker Daniel de la Calle came to an end, though without any particular fallout: milestones and changes enough to lead her back to telling her own story, setting aside the fairy-tale, childhood-focused inclination of Leave Your Sleep to return to registers more in line with her spare, understated poetics. It's no coincidence that what welcomes us into Natalie Merchant (2014) is a sense of peace, while the music recalls 10,000 Maniacs' Our Time In Eden, albeit in a stripped-down version: a few graceful edges and barely a minimalist choral touch for reinforcement. Natalie thus gets to show herself with utmost naturalness, perfectly at ease in that frugal, limpid introspective stance, despite the unmistakable, aching reserve that still shadows her. A little further on, another intimate ballad, "Texas", reveals her once again as the superb dancer on the heartstrings she has always been.

Somber tones also prevail on "Maggie Said", a sparer track where almost only the voice is given room. A refrain that showcases at its best the great suggestive power she's capable of opens onto a benevolent, crystalline light.

The new Merchant is at peace, and the balance that emerges from her songwriting only does her full justice, portraying her faithfully. It amounts to a kind of return to her origins, to the essentialism of The Wishing Chair, a sonic setting in which the singer moves with the same determination and lightness she had from the start. This is certainly true of the roots-leaning tracks, but it seems a valid observation too for the unusual, moving passage of "Go Down, Moses", charged by Corliss Stafford's gospel brushstrokes and the never-too-showy backing of horns and organs: a foray into territory not exactly typical for her (as had happened on several occasions on Motherland), carried out by Natalie in her own way, tiptoeing in, useful for strengthening and adding a bit of color to the whole. The "seven deadly sins" that follow give her back to us in an austere pose, not without bitterness, as in the less rosy pages of her past.

On the second half, we again stray from the straight folk-singer-songwriter path with the voluptuous late-night-club atmosphere of "It's A-Coming" or the sparing jazz-blues splashes of "Black Sheep". Natalie's presence then grows gradually more vivid and sensual, before a vaudeville-style little march introduces what is perhaps the new album's most recognizable title ("Lulu", dedicated to the silent-film diva Louise Brooks). The delicate, radiant and poignant songwriter thus returns to the stage, albeit a bit too constrained by the classicizing, rhetorical stamp of the music. One of the limits of Natalie Merchant is its wordiness, and the closing section suffers from the same snag, even though the string flourishes mostly served to ensure some substantial lightness.

Still, when it's her voice welcoming and leading us to a place so far removed from everyday vulgarity, there's no doubt that the purest class of this extraordinary singer-songwriter remains the one classic detail that can never be called into question, not even at her next milestone. Which, surprisingly, comes only a year later, even if it's merely a reworking of her masterpiece, twenty years on. Paradise Is There – The New Tigerlily Recordings (2015) is an opportunity to savor again the enchanted beauty of those songs, only more mature and updated to contemporary sounds. A few traces of rock get lost along the way - as on "Carnival", stripped of its psych-pop electric guitar but reinvigorated by a jazzy mood, with brushes and acoustic guitar. And while tracks like "Beloved Wife" or "The Letter" are even more delicate and intangible than twenty years ago, the closing pair of "Jealousy" and "Wonder" recovers a radiant sound, close to that of the Maniacs' famous Unplugged.

A good occasion, in short, to dust off a classic of songwriting by a woman from the last twenty years.

Included in the Natalie Merchant Collection box set released in 2017, the album of unreleased tracks, rarities and alternate versions, Butterfly, will for many years remain the artist's final record release.

In 2018, during a visit to London's Victoria & Albert Museum, the singer-songwriter was hospitalized for a sudden illness. Natalie was suffering from a degenerative disease that required surgery, during which, besides the removal of three bones from her spine, her throat was also operated on, preventing her from singing or recording a new album for over a year.

The courage of a woman

Finally, in 2023, comes her first album of original compositions in over a decade. Mythology — Narcissus, Valentino and Aphrodite — literature and poetry — Walt Whitman and William Blake — and Natalie Merchant's pronounced social sensibility create an explosive blend: the album is dense, refined, ambitious. Keep Your Courage (2023) unfolds across a structure that blends the poetry of folk music with the power of the orchestra: a full twenty-four musicians and seven classical arrangers are part of a project that can't be reduced to a mere collection of songs. The lyrical and harmonic grandeur, the country, blues and soul inflections, the elegant orchestral textures and the heartfelt emotional crescendo of the first two tracks, "Big Girls" and "Come On, Aphrodite" (with Abena Koomson-Davis joining Natalie on vocals), give shape to two of Merchant's finest compositions, almost two instant classics.

The many pages steeped in orchestral and neoclassical flavors offer more meditative shades: sweeping strings conjure a Spanish and gypsy-tinged atmosphere ("Guardian Angel") and a dreamlike waltz tempo (the nostalgic, intricate "Sister Tilly"); but there's also room for a piercing melancholy shading into noir tones ("Narcissus," embellished by a gorgeous guitar solo), and for the heavy, martial tone of "Hunting The Wren" (a Lankum song, and the album's only cover) — tracks that shift the creative axis toward experimentation. In recounting the infinite shades of love, Natalie Merchant also captures its sometimes fleeting allure ("Tower Of Babel," "Eye Of The Storm," "Song Of Himself").

Keep Your Courage” is nonetheless no easy listen, but the long wait has been well rewarded: talking about love without slipping into banality and the obvious is no simple feat, yet the American artist's ninth album will be remembered as an almost singular achievement.

In the meantime, Natalie is at work on a project devoted to Italian poetry (she's learning our language), and the prospects are exciting.

Contributions by Gianfranco Marmoro ("Leave Your Sleep," "Keep Your Courage") and Stefano Ferreri ("Natalie Merchant")

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google