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Jennifer Kimball
Recorded in a period of emotional and physical upheaval – Kimball was pregnant during the recording and had recently lost her mother to cancer – Oh Hear Us reflects and integrates the turmoil of its conception. Conflicting feelings of joy and despair, pain and comfort, doubt and faith are all explored, with Kimball fully inhabiting the moment, the clarity of her voice creating a perfect foil for each vignette. She is a subtle performer too, never resorting to theatrics to convey false emotion and these songs are all the more powerful for their simplicity and apparent effortlessness.
The jaunty country-folk of ‘Can’t Climb Up’ belies the poignancy of the lyric exploring a daughter’s broken relationship with her dad, words that gain additional chill with the knowledge of Kimball’s own strained paternal relationship. Indeed, family is a prevalent theme that’s dealt with gracefully on each occasion. ‘Eternal Father’ (an adaptation of the hymn ‘Eternal Father Strong To Save’) and ‘Last Ride Home’ are both sombre eulogies to the death of her mum, while ‘Don’t Take Your Love Away’ neatly twists the standard tale of a betrayed wife with the final revelation: “I’m reading this too close to home / I’ve got some letters and a box of my own”.
‘Is He Or Isn’t He?’ provides a change in mood, affectionately musing on life as a singleton and the knowing pretences everyone indulges in over gentle African rhythms and Hawaiian guitar. Elsewhere, Kimball excels in painting story tableaux that explore the complex emotions of, for wont of a better phrase, “the human condition”. ‘When I Was Lost’ sees her take on the mantle of an economic migrant eking out a living, the pain of absence assuaged by the innate strength of love. ‘East Of Indiana’ and ‘Lightning Bug’, on the other hand, seem to suggest that isolation is just plain loneliness and a dose of regret, a theme echoed in ‘Ballad #61’s exquisitely dour bluesy folk.
After all this despondent introspection, Kimball employs James Taylor’s favourite trick of leavening the mood with a jazz-swing standard to close on, in this case the old Bing Crosby number, ‘Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams’. Sung with an audible smile and a knowing wink, Kimball and her band clearly revelled in the experience, with a fabulously cheesy guitar solo from producer Duke Levine and Kevin Barry hitting most of the right notes in mostly the right order with his devil- may-care whistling solo. Oh Hear Us is a fitting addition to Jennifer Kimball’s all too selective oeuvre – our fervent prayer is that we won’t have to wait another eight years for the next instalment.
Trevor Raggatt
jennifer kimball: oh hear us
Jennifer Kimball
Oh Hear Us ••••
Epoisse
That Jennifer Kimball is less well lodged in the collective consciousness than her erstwhile collaborator Jonatha Brooke (with whom she formed the acclaimed duo The Story) is doubtless down to a patchy career dominated by what in this day and age might be referred to as “work-life balance decisions”. Kimball quit The Story in 1994 at the height of their success and has since released just one other solo album, Veering From The Wave. No matter, established fans and those discovering Kimball afresh with Oh Hear Us will concur that the wait has been worth it.
Recorded in a period of emotional and physical upheaval – Kimball was pregnant during the recording and had recently lost her mother to cancer – Oh Hear Us reflects and integrates the turmoil of its conception. Conflicting feelings of joy and despair, pain and comfort, doubt and faith are all explored, with Kimball fully inhabiting the moment, the clarity of her voice creating a perfect foil for each vignette. She is a subtle performer too, never resorting to theatrics to convey false emotion and these songs are all the more powerful for their simplicity and apparent effortlessness.
The jaunty country-folk of ‘Can’t Climb Up’ belies the poignancy of the lyric exploring a daughter’s broken relationship with her dad, words that gain additional chill with the knowledge of Kimball’s own strained paternal relationship. Indeed, family is a prevalent theme that’s dealt with gracefully on each occasion. ‘Eternal Father’ (an adaptation of the hymn ‘Eternal Father Strong To Save’) and ‘Last Ride Home’ are both sombre eulogies to the death of her mum, while ‘Don’t Take Your Love Away’ neatly twists the standard tale of a betrayed wife with the final revelation: “I’m reading this too close to home / I’ve got some letters and a box of my own”.
‘Is He Or Isn’t He?’ provides a change in mood, affectionately musing on life as a singleton and the knowing pretences everyone indulges in over gentle African rhythms and Hawaiian guitar. Elsewhere, Kimball excels in painting story tableaux that explore the complex emotions of, for wont of a better phrase, “the human condition”. ‘When I Was Lost’ sees her take on the mantle of an economic migrant eking out a living, the pain of absence assuaged by the innate strength of love. ‘East Of Indiana’ and ‘Lightning Bug’, on the other hand, seem to suggest that isolation is just plain loneliness and a dose of regret, a theme echoed in ‘Ballad #61’s exquisitely dour bluesy folk.
After all this despondent introspection, Kimball employs James Taylor’s favourite trick of leavening the mood with a jazz-swing standard to close on, in this case the old Bing Crosby number, ‘Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams’. Sung with an audible smile and a knowing wink, Kimball and her band clearly revelled in the experience, with a fabulously cheesy guitar solo from producer Duke Levine and Kevin Barry hitting most of the right notes in mostly the right order with his devil- may-care whistling solo. Oh Hear Us is a fitting addition to Jennifer Kimball’s all too selective oeuvre – our fervent prayer is that we won’t have to wait another eight years for the next instalment.
Trevor Raggatt
originally published July 2nd, 2006
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Tags: jennifer kimball, oh hear us
This entry was posted on Sunday, July 2nd, 2006 at 4:29 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.
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