Yasmine White, Simple Truths (Yasmusic, 2002)

These days, folk tend to equate simple with simplistic, sweet with saccharine, and sincere with a kind of sticky over-earnestness. Not so. Sweetness is like a comforting touch from a loyal animal -- saccharine is a pastel painting of a big-eyed kitten. And simple music is harder than complicated music in many ways. There’s an urge to add unnecessary embellishments -- how many times has a very plain, sweet melody been ruined because the singer felt the need to add extra curlicues and trills? Likewise, it’s easy to take a simple idea, and make it sound complicated -- the best examples would be legal contracts, or efforts at political correctness. And how much fun are those?

For the most part, both musically and conceptually, Yasmine White manages to make sweet-sounding music without unnecessary adornment. She lets the words and ideas flow smoothly; and best of all, it sounds easy.

For example, the first song, “Lemon Trees”, uses almost identical verses as well as choruses -- but the few subtle changes in the words convey entirely different meanings from verse to verse. This is a trick that’s harder than it looks -- and it adds layers to a song that in the first verse sounds like just another relationship tune. Other songs, in the midst of sweetness, examine some very real and very hard matters; “I Am Not Your Saint”, for instance, looks hard at how a family can poison self-image with its own prejudices, “Justice” looks at trying to save the whole world, while ignoring troubles right outside the door. Neither song descends into acid or sarcasm, or condemns its subject, but neither flinches away from the subject or its unpleasantness. Again, an unusual balancing act; it sounds simple, and yet the truly easy path would be to make a damning diatribe.

Musically, of course, the focus is on Yasmine’s vocals, including harmonies and usually guitar, often accompanied by Jim Baird on bass, and sometimes by other instrumentalists. The arrangements are open and acoustic, with the melody strongly to the forefront. Yasmine’s voice is beautiful; slightly unpolished but versatile, managing to be sultry in one song, and solid, even slightly edged, in another. She occasionally lets it break between notes, but except for the almost hiccuppy effect spoiling the chorus of “Swallowed Whole”, she saves it for occasional emphasis. Her guitar- playing seems fairly easy, without show-off effects, but it’s certainly more than simply matching chords to notes. I suspect that it’s as deceptive in its simplicity as her melodies and her lyrics.

There’s a nice variation of styles in the album, too. The title track has a 50's rock ballad feel, an effect that comes partly from the use of the harmonies. “By the River” is a gospel-like a capella piece. “Innocent” comes right out of current trends in singer-songwriter style; a little artsy, meandering, more thoughtful than melodic. It’s the kind of song it takes more than one listening to really gain a taste for, but the time spent is well worth it.

The weak points of the album are “Melt Me Down”, a sexy love song whose lyrics come a little too close to cliched, and “Swallowed Whole”, mainly because of the aforementioned hiccuppy chorus. Yet even these songs have merits that far outweigh their weaknesses. There is no bad track, and some real standouts. I’m already eager to see what’s to come next.