Audrey Auld, Losing Faith (Reckless, 2003)
Australian Audrey Auld writes and sings Americana music in a variety of styles, from confessional folk to country-rock. She's also an entrepreneur and founder of her own record label, making her something of an antipodean Ani diFranco, without all that manic energy.
"Music with the dirt left on," is how Auld describes her music in her press packet, and that's a pretty good description. Playing acoustic guitar herself, she draws on the talents of labelmate Bill Chambers (father of alt-country wunderkind Kasey Chambers) for harmony vocals and deft touches of slide guitar and dobro. Auld has a singing style and a musical outlook somewhere between the younger Chambers and American doom-and-gloom queen Mary Gauthier, and not surprisingly, she also enlists both of these singers on this disc.
Most of the first half of Losing Faith is dark and darker. From the opening title track, this album is rife with a sort of gothic religious imagery, and "Losing Faith" employs it effectively in a bitter kiss-off song: "You gave me bread and fishes/and spoke of burning bushes/and I drank your blood just to prove my faith," she sings in the chorus. Her husky alto, slightly rough around the edges, breaks in all the right places and carries a pleasing combination of Aussie burr and country twang.
"Denied" is an acoustic ballad with lovely three-part harmonies on the chorus, from Chambers and guitarist Chris Haigh. On this and all the tracks, Chambers never over-plays with his dobro or slide guitars.
"Our Lady of Sorrows" is dense, anthemic folk, with imagery and words reminiscent of Julie Miller's deeply religious compositions. It's a plea for shelter to a figure representing the feminine side of spirituality, and it sets up the next track, "Not Who I Am." This one, featuring lovely harmonies from Kasey Chambers, Crystal Bailey and Camille Te Nahu, is a feminist cant against the macho men of the world who confuse love and war. Despite all that, it has a jaunty tune, a catchy refrain and lively instrumentation from banjo, mandolin, fiddle and congas.
Things pick up in the middle of the record, with the sassy, bluegrassy "Doin' Well," in which Auld turns up her nose at the music scenes in Austin, New York, Santa Cruz and Nashville, in favor of staying right where she is and making music her own way. "Trashin' Da Blues" is a bluesy workout with some fine lap steel from Chambers. "B-Grade Affair" is a honky-tonk comic piece, a duet with labelmate Fred Eaglesmith, whose gravelly voice is perfect for this humorous take on a one-night stand. And Auld bounces back with the honky-tonk swing of "Next Big Nothing," another wryly funny and independent look at her place in the music biz. Nestled in amongst these uptempo numbers is the solo-acoustic anti-love song, "Your Eyes," as bitter a put-down song as you'll hear this year: "You're smiling hard and they're believing you/but your eyes give you away..."
Auld covers an Eaglesmith song, another bitter love song called "You Did," with some nice electric guitar from Jeff Mercer; she rocks out with "Heartache," an anthemic mid-tempo number with soaring B-3 organ; she duets with Mary Gauthier on another lost-love song, "Ain't No Joy," and finishes off on an upbeat note, dueting with Kieran Kane (The O'Kanes) on one of Kane's songs, the lovely "Harmony," in which music serves as a metaphor for love.
Losing Faith offers contrast aplenty, but it's not jarring. Everything fits together in a solid statement of Auld's independence, integrity and grit, as a woman and a musician. Audrey Auld is a welcome addition to the music scene on these shores.
You can learn more at Audrey Auld's Web site, and at the Reckless Records Web site.
