sarah harmer: i’m a mountain

Wears The Trousers is a bit late coming to this because one never really knows what to expect with Sarah Harmer. Having spent the ‘90s fronting the not especially great indie rock outfit Weeping Tile, 2000’s solo debut You Were Here was astonishingly good. Laced with wit and sentimentality, the songs garnered critical praise from reviewers worldwide and expanded Harmer’s sound. A year earlier, Songs For Clem — a duets album initially recorded for her father’s ears only — had seen her exploring the realms of folk and poetry with truly affecting results. After such enormous accolades, Harmer seemed to flag with the rather lacklustre All Of Our Names. Though it still bagged her a Juno Award, it seemed a little rushed, as if the songs were simply pushed together with little definition.

Thank goodness for I’m A Mountain, then. This quietly impressive collection not only showcases all the facets of her sound that made her such a unique force in the first place, but combines all that made her previous incarnations so successful. Full of affirmations and themes of renewal and revitalisation, I’m A Mountain takes a back-to-the-land approach, both thematically and stylistically, without sounding pretentious. Starting off strongly with the gently-strummed ‘The Ring’, Harmer uses the age-old metaphor of the boxing ring, but instead of focusing on the battle, she sings eloquently of the coaching support — ”You thank me all the time / but now it’s my turn…and it made me feel better / to have you there in my corner”.

Continuing the theme of positive relationships, album highlight ‘I Am Aglow’ blooms with pure bluegrass and is as whimsically singalong as anyone could possibly want. But not every song is quite so light-hearted; ‘Escarpment Blues’, inspired by Harmer’s own youth spent on an Ontario farm, laments the threat to the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. Facing modern day land use issues with an intelligent ear, the lyrics read less like an alarmist diatribe and more like a concerned citizen speaking during a council meeting. With a soft voice full of gentle concern, Harmer sings “if they blow a hole in my backyard / everyone is gonna run away / the creeks won’t flow to the Great Lake below / will the water in the wells still be okay?” It certainly doesn’t approach the hard-hitting music of the ‘60s protest masters, but Harmer does a magnificent job of echoing her concern without being patronising about what makes modern convenience such a part of day-to-day life.

The centrepiece of the record, however, is Harmer’s cover of the Dolly Parton classic ‘Will He Be Waiting For Me?’, to which she brings a delicate vulnerability that, whilst still retaining the wistfulness of the original, gives the song a slightly different perspective. Sparse and unforced yet fulfilling and ultimately satisfying, I’m A Mountain has it all — intelligent songwriting, fine musicianship and well-written songs. Harmer doesn’t go the currently popular country-noir chanteuse route, already done to near perfection by Neko Case and Jenny Lewis; instead, she sticks to more playful yet conscientiously lyrical poetry and whimsical seriousness. These are uncontrived sketches, inspired by country music before it went pop, bluegrass when it was pure, and new takes on age-old stories told time after time in song.

[Zoe / Rounder; February 6, 2006]

Written by: Loria Near

Tags: i'm a mountain, sarah harmer

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 27th, 2006 at 4:40 pm and is filed under albums & EPs, reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.