Simone White's Sublimely Dark Existential Gaze
Gavin B. | St. Louis MO | 12/12/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I noticed that Simone White's latest album "Yakiimo" had yet to be reviewed on Amazon.com, so I'll get the ball rolling because she deserves to be heard by a wider audience.
Simone's musical oeuvre is minimalist post modern folk music. She didn't learn to play guitar until age 22 but her simple finger picking patterns underscore the power of her songwriting and she uses few, if any backup musicans on her recordings. Her music is ironic, tender, mysterious, erotic and often disturbing. She sings elegantly crafted folk ballads that are unadulterated interior musings of an observer. Simone is a voyeur who observes with a keen eye. But she is also an sly exhibitionist unafraid of sharing her intimate observations with an audience of strangers. Those contradictions between the self and the other are what makes Simone White an intriguing musician and artist.
On songs like "Bunny in a Bunny Suit" and "A Girl You Never Met" her emotional honesty can be a bit disconcerting. Simone's lyrics are provocative by design. Her expressive voice and the sparse arrangements of her songs make it easier for her music to get unsettlingly close to you. There is an awkward sadness that is often at odds with a shimmering sense of self discovery in her music. Simone's highly stylized YouTube videos reveal a photogenic and imaginative performance artist with a quietly powerful aristic vision.
I've heard Simone compared to everyone from Lisa Germano to Astrud Gilberto to Mo Tucker to Cat Power to PJ Harvey. Her covers of songs by Victoria Williams and Elizabeth Cotton songs her musical influences to be even more diverse and unorthodox. Caveat Emptor: The cover songs are only available on the MP3 download of "Yakiimo" ($8.99) which has 15 songs and are absent on the compact disc which has only 12 songs and has a steep price tag of $24.98. Apparently Simone is marketing "Yakiimo" to the digital generation.
By her own account Simone was born in Hawaii to a family of artists and spent her early years "playing in the dirt and moving from town to town." Her parents were hippies (rumored to be cultists) who lived a bedouin lifestyle. Drawn to the arts, Simone acted in plays and films, work as a photographer and wrote. Needing an instrument for the songs she wrote a cappella, Simone taught herself to play guitar. But other interests prevailed and it wasn't until she moved to New York from London in 2000 that she was ready to get on stage and play. She played at NYC clubs and bars. A chance meeting in 2004 took her to Nashville to record with Mark Nevers (Calexico, Will Oldham, Lambchop).
Simone White is a distinctive musical stylist and won't be everyone's cup of tea but if you like musical eccentrics like Cat Power or Lisa Germano you'll probably like Simone. It takes a few listenings to appreciate the complex psychosocial themes Simone White explores with her music. I've been under the spell of Simone's sublimely dark existential gaze every since I downloaded "Yakiimo" a few weeks back. "Yakiimo" is one of notable albums of 2009.
NOTABLE SONGS: Bunny in A Bunny Suit; Baby Lay Down With Me; Without A Sound; and Yakiimo.
"
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1