Sonya Cotton | Red River

FRESH BAKED
Sonya Cotton
Red River
2009 | Self-Release
A

So it’s time for the context show.

There are two major elements that complicate my reviewing Sonya Cotton’s Red River. First, I know Sonya. She’s pretty cool, and she’s super nice to dogs. We are friends and we played music together for a long time. I also produced her first two albums. So, there’s that glaring “conflict of interest.” But I’ve no intention of writing a press release for Cotton, and I’d certainly, and without qualms, refuse to review her album if I wasn’t smitten by it. Second, I’m admittedly an overly liberal grader (much to the frustration of JM.com’s editors’ attempts to regulate the grading scale). The Low Anthem sounds really enthusiastic, shows a lot of promise, and has three incredible songs? Alright, “A.”  J. Tillman’s new album is significantly better than his last? Aw, hell. Give the guy an “A.” He’s worked hard for it. Sometimes the editors suggest that I rethink and perhaps alter those generous grades, and I appreciate and actually thank them for that. It’s nice to have somebody to reel you in every once in a while. And it’s not unlikely that they will question the fact that I’m throwing Red River an “A.” This is all to say that the “A” above (and I’m even tempted to give an “A+”) is mine, it’s not the site’s. If you don’t agree with my mark, that’s totally okay. Not everybody can love every album. And I have a feeling that this album in particular a lot of people are going to be lukewarm about. If you don’t like Sonya’s voice, you’re not going to like this album; it’s a lot of Sonya. And if you don’t generally like female singer-songwriters, then you probably won’t like this album either – even though I think it establishes Sonya as one of the premier living female folk songwriters, right alongside Nina Nastasia. (I love Joanna Newsom, but Ys is not nearly as consistent as Red River.)

But I love this album. So much so that I feel guilty about having reviewed all the preceding albums of 2009 so generously, if only because those reviews undercut how profoundly gorgeous Red River is. And that “conflict of interest” – the fact that I know Sonya as a musician – doesn’t seem all that conflicting to me. It helps me understand the album better. For example, Sonya taught herself to play the guitar and the baritone ukulele and she plays them in a lunatic style that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  She doesn’t often utilize standard chord voicing and her sense of logical melodic progression is anything but logical. Which explains a lot about why every song on Red River is so consistently and organically excellent: these are folk songs, but they’re so maniacally composed, so surprising, that they exceed their genre. In the same way that only Joanna Newsom could have composed a work like Ys, I find it inconceivable that anyone else, ever, could have constructed the songs on Red River. In terms of composition, Red River is a singular achievement of a singular voice.

And coupled with the composition is the performance. Cotton’s voice is, very simply, stunning. (Even Pitchfork thinks so). But a songwriter can only carry her work so far, no matter how inspired, by herself. Cotton’s band is one of the finest folk outfits in the business today. In every fashion, Red River is displaced; the band wears none of the tattered rust that most modern folk acts relish. These are immaculate performers and, fittingly, immaculate performances. Throughout, there are stunning tides of violin and flute, and the percussion, though sparse, is masterfully so. Red River is also laced with some of the most inspired and creative harmonies I’ve heard in ages. Like, remember Fleet Foxes? How everybody was all, “OMG listen to the harmonies?” I love the Fleet Foxes record, but let’s be honest: those harmonies are elementary. Cotton and her band have created a choral tapestry.

And how to discuss or describe the songs? They are hymns and they are prayers. They are quietly hopeful contemplations of love and loss and growth, and they are often so utterly and shockingly beautiful that their preternatural wisdom and grace seem to stretch from them in vines. I’m constantly inclined to compare Red River to Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece, both in terms of its spiritual vision and its Anglo-Irish-American folk.  And Veedon Fleece, as some people know, I believe to be the finest album ever made, so any thread of comparison from me is high compliment. Should I list off my favorite songs? That’s a difficult endeavor. Every track is a collage of small, perfect moments. So it might be easier to mention the introduction of the flute in “Song For Tony,” or the culminating harmony of “Red River,” or the incredible wordless harmonies of “Wild Wind,” or the angelic chorus of “Bear.”  But there are manifold moments that equal these. And so any endeavor at close analysis, in a brief review, seems to me pointless. I’d simply end up discussing a string of gorgeous moments that are all tied and woven together and construct a gorgeous whole.

Does it seemed biased, all of this? Yes, sure. I wouldn’t trust this review either. But really, Red River so deservedly needs to be heard. I don’t exaggerate when I express my belief that music can enliven a human heart, that it can instill the glory and beauty of the world in us and that it can fill us with hope and longing and despair and love. And when it does it well it demands some flowery and overzealous fawning. And when I listen to Red River – again, I admit to the selfishness of this critique – I feel graced, I feel my heart fill with the ghosts of everyone I’ve lost and love, and I feel that promise of hope on the dawn. And, always, I feel lucky – so lucky – that I am alive and here, to hear it. 

by Chris Kiehne