Rebecca Hall, Sunday Afternoon (Listen Here!, 2002)
Erica Smith, Friend or Foe (Listen Here!, 2002)

Rebecca Hall and Erica Smith have a lot in common. They are both from new York City and record on the same label. They both have quiet and melodious voices and have recorded both original and traditional music on their albums. They have both been compared, according to their biographies, to the late Fairport diva Sandy Denny. Unfortunately their albums share the same problems, especially for the traditionalist. First, the original songs are not particularly striking. Secondly, the production and arrangements often seem synthetic, like a house bought in a subdivision rather than one built by choice and thought.

Rebecca Hall's Sunday Afternoon is set to a musical retro-folk theme. The songs and her voice are breathily pretty, though at times reminiscent of the late Karen Carpenter. Some songs are more agreeable than others. One nice, almost traditional-sounding piece she has written herself is "Sculptor's Song":

You kept me spinning on your web
And that is where I long to hang
When sweetly bound above the moon
I clutched at every strand.

Backing instruments include guitar, cello, oboe, and bells.

On a traditional song, "Rosemary Lane," her sweet voice blends with 70s-ish guitar, bass, and a few bells. Other tracks have a country background, including an annoying plunking piano on "Thanks Just The Same." Still others are post-neuvo editions of those pop-folk albums from the sixties. Imagine a lace-clad, seanced Marianne Faithful or Chad and Jeremy, with plenty of double tracking, a real fiddle enhanced to simulate swishy keyboards, and a tear-jerker cello. Yeah, sure, we listened to this stuff in those naive, flowery junior high school days and every so often there's a faint glimmer of ethereal goth. People who feel defensive about these things may really like this album, and many of the songs do sound pretty. But the musicians don't seem to be inspired or having a good time and I just want to shove that Floyd Cramer piano into the Hudson. See me dozing off to the diaphanous lyrics of the title track, "Sunday Afternoon":

And as the clouds roll by I watch the town below
Where nothing ever changes and the people all move slow.

ZZZZ....clunk.

Erica Smith's Friend or Foe features light rock, country, and blues...rootsy, you could call it...arrangements from an almost entirely different band, the two bands sharing Orrin Star on banjo. Smith's voice, like Hall's, is soft though melodic, but it is also a little more suited to the modern world of indie rock or edgy folk. There is at least one blues song here, "Love You All the Way," sung fairly calmly. I'd like to throw its string section into the Hudson to join the aforementioned piano, though.

To be truthful, though I have listened to the album a number of times, I can't recall the lyrics from the originals, save for these lines from "A War Is On,"

I could be your sweet sweet angel
I could be your darling wife

Most of what I've pondered while listening is why anyone would take a photo of oneself dressed in a slip and put it out in public in liner notes. But the AMAZING thing about this album is that despite so much of my dull complaining, it contains a few really interesting arrangements of traditional songs. (Imagine fiery volcanoes arising from an ocean of cream of wheat.) One of these is a blues version of "Johnny Come Down To Hilo." The slide guitar, djembe and shaker, and even the mild electronic effects sound great.

Wake her! Shake her! Shake that gal with the blue dress on!

"Oh Death," though missing the electronics, has the same blues/djembe motif. You've got to wonder why more of the tracks on the album don't have similar arrangements and vitality! "Wayfaring Stranger" and especially "Pretty Saro" are more conventional but pleasant and may please the strict traditionalist more than the fun blues-shanty tracks.

I can't help thinking that many of these gal's arrangements were just tacked on for recording the albums...I hear people sometimes do this. In the future my hopes are that they come up with more interesting lyrics, crisper and more genuine arrangements, and more traditional tracks. But maybe they won't want to follow my advice! Recommended for people who like low-key female voices and interesting versions of "Johnny Come Down To Hilo."