Song Review: “Burden”

Local Spotlight:
Tarrah Reynolds
“Burden”
2008 | Self-released

Photo by Ethan White

Heaven bless the internet. For, however against the odds, it remains not only a superlative source of penis enlargement opportunities, but also a conduit for discovering the new, the intriguing, the beautiful, and, yes, sometimes, even the sublime. And lately, amidst the literally depressing economic mayhem around me, I’ve been surfing around quite a bit, trying to discover the latter, particularly in music.

Fortunately, a few days ago I happened upon Tarrah Reynolds’ Myspace page out of this simple curiosity. A friend had mentioned that Reynolds, a wonderful violinist, has been making her way in the local singer-songwriter circuit. This is a very good thing. Reynolds’ music possesses a lush earthiness, like something subterranean that (for the best) can’t shake its fresh and tectonic nature even after having been brought to the surface and molded. An acute sensitivity burnishes her melodies, lyrics, and guitar playing; the story told through their composite has purpose.

On “Burden,” the composition manages to sound both minimalist and expansive simultaneously, with this particularity knotting together the instrumentation and vocals, beginning with simple guitar plucking leading into the first lines “I’ve been staring into his dark eyes for so long, that now my vision’s gone, my vision’s gone,” delivered without oversentimentality. Perhaps her classical training on the violin as well as the diversity of her subsequent experiences bestows this plush exactitude. (On the violin, Reynolds has played with and/or recorded for Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and The Gorrilaz, to name just a handful of many.)

Few can boast of Reynolds’ multifaceted talent, which appears headed on a path to shining in the rare way that luminary Joni Mitchell’s giftedness does. Of the tracks I found online, “Burden” has turned out to be my favorite. Anyone else interested in hearing great, soulful folk will be glad, too, after taking a moment to discover which one will be hers or his.

by Alicia Dreilinger

http://www.myspace.com/misstarrah