MARRY WATERSON & EMILY BARKER - A Window To Other Ways

What fills the twelve tracks of the first joint effort by Marry Waterson and Emily Barker is a polished brand of psych-folk, rich in dense, descriptive lyrics. The former leans towards a more “classic” English sound (her mother Lal, who passed away in 1998, was a celebrated folksinger), while the latter, Australian, younger, is more eclectic and upbeat: together they produce a mix greater than the sum of its parts. Credit is also due to the arrangements curated by Adem Ilhan, the album's best supporting actor, and to the contributions of Lukas Drinkwater (bass and guitars) and Rob Pemberton (drums), both members of Barker's live band.

The two women prove equally adept at handling tradition and the contemporary, moving naturally from a "Twister" that springs from the folk ballads of Fleetwood Mac, Christine McVie side, to a "Perfect Needs" that sounds like an outtake from the most inspired Courtney Barnett, complete with backing vocals à-la Yo La Tengo, all the way to a "Little Hits Of Dopamine" that stakes its claim as the best track on the record. It's precisely when the arrangements fill out that the album yields its finest fruits, especially in the first half of the tracklist.

Along the way we also come across the banjo of "I'm Drawn", which carries clear traces of the best "Americana", the lovely old-world minimalism of "Trick Of The Light", and the piano that, aided by strings, digs right into the veins on "Going Dark". "A Window To Other Ways" is the result of a collaboration that works for all ears, essential listening for anyone nostalgic for the best singer-songwriter folk produced in the '70s - a decade that deep down still carried the last traces of hippie utopias, yet already knew how to engage with the social issues of the era that followed immediately after.

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04/04/2019