It know that it’s important for 101 reasons to stay aware of your prejudices and make a conscious effort to peer beyond them. I struggle to interest myself in the singer/songwriters of today, feeling safe in the belief that none will compare to Joni Mitchell, Shawn Phillips, Janis Ian, David Ackles, Dory Previn or really any of the talents that emerged during the first and second waves of singer/songwriters on either side of the Atlantic, including lesser-known artists like Steve Swindells, a British singer/songwriter who recorded for RCA, or Pamela Polland, who emerged from the psychedelic folk duo, Gentle Soul, and went on to record on her own for CBS. I don’t think there’s ever been a time in subsequent pop history that has equaled that explosion or come anywhere near.
And I’ve yet to be convinced that arrangers such as Paul Buckmaster or David Campbell have been meaningfully superseded by anyone in the generations below theirs. I find myself terribly unconvinced by the current crop of sensitive men and women with guitars. Sometimes, I doubt them as songwriters, especially when I see the credits and discover they’ve wheeled in the professionals, like Guy Chambers or Francis ‘eg’ White, in order to do the difficult stuff, the actual work of songwriting. Anyway, before this becomes a rant, I should remember how it began; it’s important to question your own prejudices. Not every singer/songwriter in today’s market is in the inane, grinning, head-full-of-nothing Ed Sheeran mold. Every pop era has sometimes seen quality rise to the surface. The 1980s gave us Suzanne Vega, easily Joni Mitchell’s equal as an intellect and a lyricist. In the 1990s, there came Tori Amos, Rufus Wainwright, and Fiona Apple, three artists I have no hesitation in putting on an equal footing with those of the early 1970s.
All this is to explain why I came gingerly to Erin Rae (full name, Erin Rae McKasckle), a guitar-and-voice singer/songwriter on Single Lock Records (home of the tremendous Nicole Atkins). The unforced intimacy and intelligence of her songwriting, the cooing birdsong melodies, and the country/folk/roots blend of sounds in which its all cloaked make Putting on Airs no small pleasure. This album has an unassuming charm that becomes apparent the longer you keep its acquaintance. “Grand Scheme” with its echoing spaciousness, ringing guitar and triumphant, almost tribal-sounding drums, could have come from a David Lynch film, and the same observation could be made of “June Bug”.
Although she’s more likely to be compared to fellow country contenders Margo Price and Whitney Rose, Rae’s voice reminds me of Susan Webb, Jimmy’s talented but less well-known sister, who made one album, Bye Bye Pretty Baby (Anchor Records, 1975) that remains unjustly obscure. It may be set in a lower range and be less characterized by ethereality, but her voice shares with Webb’s a lack of affectation and bombast, an unpretentiousness that stands quite in contrast to the album title. She also eschews the twang of Price and Rose, forging a sound that’s more pastoral, with a bookish sensibility informing her lyrics.
Perhaps some reshuffling of the running order could have averted one issue, which is that a few tracks share very similar rhythm patterns. That aside, Putting on Airs presents an incredibly promising newcomer who’s bound to do even better stuff if she’s already this good by her second album (her first, as part of Erin Rae and the Meanwhiles, arrived in 2015). Her cinematic Americana brings to mind freeway motels, porch swings and sweltering summer nights. But it would be a mistake to dismiss the album as mere whimsy, given that the third track, “Bad Mind”, examines sexual anxiety quite unflinchingly, touching not only on Rae’s coming-to-terms experiences but on the plight of her aunt, whose access to her own child was restricted because she was same-sex attracted. Its “I don’t wanna have a bad mind” refrain is subtly plaintive, like the finest of Laura Veirs songs. The album cover, painted by Harry Underwood, conveys a kind of Hopper-esque sense of alienation and separateness, with a bar-room scene in which a seemingly downcast man and woman have their backs to each other. This feeling is echoed in particular by “Pretend”, in which Rae looks back at an ill-fated relationship that forced her to deny her true self.
“Love Like Before” slightly overestimates the likelihood that people will be interested in rather bromidic reflections about performing life (“Ain’t the praise, reviews, rewards / Been looking or something I can’t track down, love like I knew before”), but its double-tracked vocals and groove-enriched accompaniment lodge quite persistently in the mind. The oddly old-fashioned reference to people ‘courting’ is just one of quite a few presumably deliberate anachronisms. This is an album steeped in the past, not just in terms of its sound. Special mention should go to Jerry Bernhardt (on a phenomenal variety of instruments, from mellotron to drums) and Dom Billett (drums, bass, background vocals). Rae acquits herself on acoustic and electric guitar and is someone to keep watching.