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Rachel Lipson
Pastures
Meccico
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Article
written by James S
May 24, 2005.
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Ah, the fickle finger of fashion. Where once Rachel Lipson’s patently pretty brand of New York antifolk was de rigueur for the cool cognoscente, it’s now so last year, darling. The baton of respectable folk has been passed on to the likes of Devandra, Joanna and Sufjan, never to return.
Whilst it might not be trendy any more, there's still clearly plenty of creative juice flowing alongside the beer at the Sidewalk Café, the home of antifolk in NYC. Rachel Lipson may have only moved there from her native, and equally no-longer-cool, Detroit a few years ago but she’s a natural. Her short, clipped tones and oblique imagery are strongly reminiscent of the wonderful Kimya Dawson, though thankfully without the same scatological obsession.
I’ve Sat At The Table sees Lipson pleading with a loved one who is slowly but surely pressing the self-destruct button, and exemplifies the outpouring of emotion that marks this album as so special. Armed with little more than an acoustic guitar and bags full of talent, her voice is crystal clear, especially on A Blessing, which has echoes of Suzanne Vega’s The Queen And The Soldier.
A duet with the usually reliable Jeffrey Lewis on The Eagle is a tad disappointing, but the two tracks that feature the gorgeous vocal and ukulele talents of David Herman Dune more than make up for it. Both What Won’t Wait For You and The End Of The Summer see Lipson desperately trying to extricate herself from bad relationships whilst keeping a brave face that may crack at any moment. The latter proves to be the album’s peak, with it’s moving chorus of “Don’t tell me where you’re going, don’t tell me where you’ve been; don’t tell me where you slept last night, and please don’t let me in again.”
Released on Cornershop’s Meccico imprint, ‘Pastures’ is as sweet and heartbreaking an album as you could wish to hear. Fuck fashion, just swoon.
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