CLARA ENGEL - Their Invisible Hands

Struck, at the tender age of thirteen, by the music of Bob Dylan and the Nirvana of "Mtv Unpuggled In New York", Clara Engel developed an interest in the history of blues and folk. Artists such as Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Skip James, Bessie Smith, Howlin' Wolf, Odetta and Hank Williams have indelibly shaped her style as a songwriter, always drawn to the evocative, magical power of those ancient, immortal, sparse chords.

"Their Invisble Hands" is another chapter in a musical saga that seems to belong neither to a specific place nor to a well-defined point in time, restless and fairy-tale-like at once. Clara Engel's music has no taste for impetuous, booming tones. The settings are hazy, dark, mysterious, romantic, ethereal, wistful.

Matching this taste for a hushed, nocturnal sound is also a passion for unusual or uncommon instruments — talharpa, shruti box, tank drum, melodica, chromonica and even a trunk found on the street — which, together with her voice and her trusty cigar box guitar, hold together this new, touching collection.

It's along that thin line dividing the intelligible from the supernatural that the compositions of "Their Invisible Hands" unfold, made all the more hypnotic and enchanting by the solitary nature from which they sprang.

Because of the isolation brought on by the pandemic, Clara Engel did without the contribution of outside musicians. This new project was thus born in a climate of complete creative and production self-sufficiency: for the first time, the artist took on production and recording herself, a choice that marks this new work as distinctive.

"Their Invisible Hands" is indeed a record that demands dedication and patience. The subdued character of its thirteen tracks needs repeated listens to find its proper place, even if an almost perfect sequencing of the songs makes for an easier and more emotionally rewarding listen.

Instrumental and vocal tracks follow one another, giving life to a sonic imagery that slowly takes shape and form, a virtual reality inaugurated by the spectral mantra of "O Human Child" and brought to completion by the mournful, unusually fairy-tale-like string arrangements of "The Devils Are Snoring".

The voice, now tender ("High Alien Priest"), now restless ("Murmuration"), alters the basic registers of Hengel's music, made up of dissonances, spectral chords, percussion with a tribal gait, screeches and murky lullabies — creative elements that find full expression in the fine instrumental tracks ("Dead Tree March", "Ginko's Blues", "Cryptid Bop", "Rowing Home Through A Sea Of Golden Leaves"). Likewise, the instrumental and vocal repetition soars with unexpected magic and enchantment ("Golden Egg"); some songs smell of deserted places, of wind and dust ("I Drink The Rain"), folk-pop flare-ups mockingly evoke the devil and the seduction of success ("Magic Beans"), until finally finding rest in the melancholic, comforting beauty of "The Party Is Over".

"Their Invisible Hands" is yet another variation on a constant musical theme that is never quite the same as itself, but rather part of a single folk-blues-noir work begun eighteen years ago, one that keeps enriching itself with nuances, metaphors, blurred images, and not always conventional harmonies, and which, like a spring of water or lava, never seems to find a destination.