Jane Siberry: C/D, S/D

Goodbye Sweet Pumpkinhead was an oft-performed song in the early 00s, she did it at Hillside in 2009. Maria is imo her most "complete" album stylistically, she found such a great foil in Tim Ray (piano).

The six album run is classic for sure, but imo the s/t and Teenager are also wonderful, not second-tier at all. Some would argue she continues to shine with her recent material (Shushan, the Issa trilogy) but I have not myself enjoyed them to be the case

Do you feel her decline is less steep than you did before?

great interview never thought about it but of course she knows Mary Margaret O'hara

"Decline" isn't a word I'd use! I feel like her fifteen years of "time off" from writing and recording original songs was more of a response to a highly bizarre previous fifteen years. Considering she was making enormously ambitious albums, doing Toni Basil-esque choreography onstage, but her moments of resonance seemed limited mostly to some AOR tracks that became popular with music supervisors ("Love Is Everything", "Calling All Angels"), I'd imagine the disillusionment was enormous and strange

I saw a Mary/Jane double-bill in a living room four years ago and it totally slayed

"the white tent the raft" is the most overwhelming song

The whole album destroys me

This thread prompted me to check out Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, and I was genuinely surprised by the first track, "Possession". It's not what I expected. I have a vague mental impression of Sarah McLachlan, but she didn't sell any records in the United Kingdom, she didn't have a media presence, and as far as I can tell Lilith Fair was US-only, so I'm completely unfamiliar with her work. That song was not what I expected. It's really good! One of those creepy love songs where the lyrics start off innocuous but becomes sinister. With chugging minor chords and fuzzy guitars. The video even complements the song. There was a dance mix by Rabbit in the Moon that highlights the creepy aspect.

Of Jane Siberry the only song I know is "She's Like a Swallow" from Hector Zazou's Songs from the Cold Seas. As part of the album's concept she represented Canada. Until writing this paragraph I had assumed that Suzanne Vega was Canadian as well, but she isn't. She's not Canadian. I guess that shows me. You can't tell if people are Canadian just because their very essence exudes Canada. Or in Suzanne Vega's case a strange midway point between Canada and New York. Suzanne Vega.

Songs from the Cold Seas is top 1990s. It's distilled 1990s. It was CD only because it was the 1990s. To this date it has never come out on LP. It's a concept album with a huge roster of guest musicians and engineers that was recorded in a bunch of different studios that must have cost a fortune, presumably because Sony France had too much money. The record business had money in the 1990s. Which it largely wasted, but at least it generated economic activity.

The credits list sixteen(!) studios. The whole things seems to have been recorded onto digital tapes and moved back and forth. The production is pristine digital Pro-Tools. It has Bjork as a guest vocalist, which is something that happened a lot in the 1990s. It was actually released in the actual 1990s! I don't have anything to say about Jane Siberry.

you should probably listen to the walking because then you'll certainly have things to say about jane siberry

"the white tent the raft" is the most overwhelming song

yes

I remember when No Borders Here came out. We had a hard time deciding where to put it in the store; it kind of defied categorization. It was also very surprisingly put out in the U.S. by Windham Hill, which was not really known for taking chances like this one.

the whole song is gorgeous, but wow the last few minutes of "The Bird in the Gravel" are especially beautiful.

The production (and the production on her other 80s albums) might not be for everyone but imo it only further amplifies and foregrounds the emotional resonance and poignancy of the material

Yeah the way “the bird in the gravel” builds is nuts. She really earns that polyphonic “this is a whole world here” vibe.