The new Charm of Finches album Wonderful Oblivion is a delightful kite that floats in the airy beauty of folk chamber music and caresses melodic wind breezes. This is magical mystical forest stuff that never succumbs to new-age senility – and that’s a tough tight rope thing to do.
My friend Kilda Defnut always says, “The best dreams drift into the heavens, yet fill their soundtracks with acoustic instruments.” Wonderful Oblivion catches the softly turbulent nuances of that juxtaposition.
The first song, “Concentrate on Breathing,” with its dual-voiced harmonies of Australian sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, weaves with the woven wisdom spun into the handiwork of Odysseus’ ever-faithful wife Penelope, with its soft defiance and eternal hope. I suppose the Roaches are a comparison, but this is far less quirky and possesses deeper lyrical magic – and it gets a bit more esoteric. This music conjures the melodic pulse of the very great Scottish band Tannas, with Sandra and Doreen MacKay’s twined vocals. Yeah, the heavens sing, while an acoustic guitar plays with an earthy (to get all mythological again!) labyrinth uncertainty. There’s also a soft flugelhorn halo that lands the tune with ample quiet to burn.
This is addictive stuff. The second song, “Gravity,” bubbles with a catchy pulse, while Mabel and Ivy’s vocals plead sincerity in our nebulous world. Dramatic strings enhance the clever vocal harmony. Then a piano propels the song “Heavy,” while the sisters sing into the orbit of yet another recently discovered planet. And “Pocket of Stones” digs a deep groove but then soars with an expressive chorus, while the music is a dexterous web of piano, light percussion, violin – all of which swirl with melodic mystery.
Ah, “As a Child” distills the ’70s folk Romanticism that sought to recover some sort of idyllic youth. The tune contemplates the sad wisdom, as (the great) Michael Chapman once sang in his song, “Postcards of Scarborough,” “of time past and time passing.” William Wordsworth (and reflective souls everywhere!) were oft to do the very same thing. This is a razor-sharp prayer.
Then, “Miranda” has an acoustic guitar and harmony vocal pure water melody that, in its own Charm of Finches way, recalls the quiet beauty of a Paul Simon melody, set against an incredible lyric that paints a deep psychological portrait of (once again!) in its own Charm of Finches way, the deep artistic punch of “The Boxer.” Big praise, indeed.
And, ah (again!), the guitar intro to “Treading Water” conjures the expectant cascade of a nice John Martyn song. Or, perhaps, it’s a Nick Drake tune. As Kilda Defnut often (also) says, “Sometimes, air just needs to be solid in order to create the friction of great music.” Then the song drifts with its own dreamy rivulet that blends the “sweet little mystery” into the very human soul that can converse, thankfully, with both “head and heart.”
“Goodnight” is a soft parachute-landing reprieve, which again sings with that odd melodic clarity in an ancient and always still uncertain ever-faithful Penelope’s gently woven labyrinth. There are three more songs. “Canyon” is a warm dance with an immensely passionate acoustic groove. Once again, the voices soar with a sublime melody. It’s a lovely moment that (sort of) floats into the world of zero gravity.
Oh, the brief “Into the Wild” pulses in its short spacey instrumental life, and then “Wonderful Oblivion” continues into this patient acoustic space that, as Einstein suggested, slows time. It has a really beautiful deliberate delivery that contains the final sip of wine that catches the velvet thoughts of a conversation that promises, in the midst of that “solid air,” a much more hopeful and very warm woven melodious very next day.
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