Janet Feder - THISCLOSE (2015) [SACD]

Colorado-based guitarist Janet Feder has developed a highly personal musical language, drawing inspiration from folk, jazz, minimalism, classical, avant-garde and even pop. Since the early nineties she began experimenting with her guitar, preparing it in different tunings, attaching objects to the strings, developing a unique original sound of her own.
T H I S C L O S E, her fifth solo album, is Feder's most fully realized album, featuring nine haunting songs. She manages to create a intimate sonic atmosphere in each of these songs, still, each sounds as a distilled essence of a much larger and deeper musical idea, leaving the listener with lingering thoughts. In these songs, Feder explores the timbral scope of her prepared guitars, let these instruments resonate in the studio space, surrounding the guitars with delicate handmade and found sounds and minor instrumental contributions from an impressive set of supporting musicians.
On three songs, including the opening "Crows" and "Ticking time Bomb," Feder sings in a fragile, unassuming voice, gently manipulated in the studio. Her singing intensifies the delicate, deeply emotional core of her songs. This kind of intimate fragility, as "Ticking time Bomb," is dressed with disturbing, vivid images contrasted with the simple plucking of Feder banjo and the contemplative playing of Mark Harris on the bass clarinet. The touching "Angels & Exits" is the most beautiful one, delivered with Feder disarming honest voice.
Some of her instrumental pieces, as "No Apology" and "You As Part Of A Whole," have an elusive, cinematic quality, suggestive of lonesome, distant, barren scenery. Others as "Happy Everyday, Me" and "Happy Everyday, You" are charged with innocent optimist spirit. The instrumental title-piece is the most complex one, confronting intricate layers of spare, fractured guitar lines with a dense of dark atmospheric sounds.
Unique and highly moving music.



Tracks:

01. Crows (4:55)
02. Ticking Time Bomb (4:07)
03. Happy Everyday, Me (2:56)
04. No Apology (3:31)
05. Happy Everyday, You (2:50)
06. You As Part Of A Whole (4:59)
07. Angles & Exits (5:41)
08. She Sleeps With The Sky (7:02)
09. T H I S C L O S E (10:33)

Personnel:

Janet Feder – Baritone Guitars, Electric Guitar, Banjo, Voice, Plucked Piano, Prepared Hammer Dulcimer, Sounds
~ with:
Todd Bilsborough – Percussion (tracks 4 & 6)
Kal Cahoone – Backing Vocal, Accordion (tracks 1 & 2)
Marc Dalio – Percussion (track 1)
Elaine DiFalco – Accordion (track 7)
Mike Fitzmaurice – Double Bass, Bass Harmonica (track 2)
Paul Fowler – Piano (inside & out), Voice (tracks 3, 6 & 8)
Mark Harris – Bass Clarinet (track 2)
Amy Shelley – Percussion (track 9)
Joe Shepard – Studio Door (tracks 1 & 8)
Mike Yach – Electric Guitar, Bass, Cymbaled Spring (tracks 1, 4 & 9)