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Dates Appearing: August 15 - 20 Current Release: Blurring the Edges |
In some quarters of modern pop these days, artists have found a way to say their piece by stringing together shambles of sound and arcane musings. That's not the kind of thing Meredith Brooks gets off on. Hers is a tough-hewn pop that strives for focus, and doesn't quit until it lands on a melody or topic compelling enough to glide away on its own two feet. "I like things, musical or otherwise, to be centered," she says. "Without listening to the heartbeat you pretty much can't function in this world."
That kind of deeply felt opinion was likely instilled in the Oregon native when she was a kid. Though currently a denizen of the big city, she still admires the unfettered lifestyle of her old stomping ground. And she portrays its particulars quite vividly. You can hear the satisfied snores of the community just moments after the last light in town is shut off. But in the urban province of the singer's life, the pressure is always in the red zone. Locked doors, glances instead of conversations, and runaway anxiety are the prices paid for the stimulation of relentless metropolitan action. Finding a symmetry between the two realms takes both a natural concern for poise and a respect for tension.
On Brooks' Capitol Records debut, Blurring The Edges, she proves she not only has the will, but the experience to find insights in such contradictions. She also lets us know that big questions can sometimes be defused with a simple laugh. The disc is full of the verve it takes to grab a quandary by the balls and shake out some plainspoken truth. That's because Brooks is a communicator, a performer who can ponder a question with enough presence of spirit to make the listener deeply involved with the outcome. Though she made her singing debut in Mrs. Thompson's kindergarten class ("I made up songs about the big bad wolf," she laughs), she has become a dedicated blues fan over the years. For her first solo record, she wanted her music to underscore the piercing immediacy of the gritty R&B sounds she adores.
She's also a consummate guitarist, teeming with ideas about texture and layering. While making Blurring The Edges, Brooks realized that the overall tone of her Telecaster could vivify the emotions she was trying to get across. There was a realization: echoing the same old sounds isn't nearly as exciting as constructing a whole new palette of options. "Every day in the studio I had this mantra," she admits, "the only thing I needed to do is 'forward my essence, forward my essence.' I wanted to keep the structure of the songs the way I'd written them, but take away their rigidity, make them open to new kinds of creativity. That's what blurring the edges means; you allow the creative energy to come in and the miracles to happen. There are a lot of strange combinations taking place on this record."
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