If a Tree Falls
If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is present to hear, does it make a sound?
Apply this question to musicians in want of an audience, and the answer is obvious. The philosophical problem suddenly has weight.
Once upon a time, we dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime, and the best music being made was the most popular. Times have changed. There is no shortage of glorious music in our world, but it is underground. These days, to discover sonic treasure, you must be a truffle hog. There are musical riches in our backyards – singers, songwriters, and instrumentalists that could not only hold their own next to those currently on the world’s marquees but would shame them, and with no help from Auto-Tune, video-projection, or bumpery grindery.
The blood harmony of the Everly Brothers, The Roches, or Mark Walstrom and his daughter Jennie, is more powerful than a stack of Marshall amps. It won’t deafen you, but it will disarm you, and the power of song to disarm, to elicit complete surrender from a listener, is a literal sacrament. More than a balm, it is the cathartic transubstantiation of suffering, and the closest we get on earth to transcending the burden of our hearts.
To the Walstroms’ blood harmony add Bernie Lenhoff, who can draw soul out of an instrument just by looking at it. The sound this trio makes isn’t heard, it’s felt — like a pang of love, or longing, or loss. And their alchemy not only carries you through such emotions, but leaves you in a place somewhere beyond them. This is sound that purifies.
Special mention must be made of Jennie Walstrom’s voice. A combination of innocence and experience that soars as naturally as a bird taking flight. No artifice, no performative emoting or vocal gymnastics. Nabokov says of Tolstoy’s work that it contains not everyday truth (pravda) but istina – the inner light of truth. Jennie Walstrom’s voice is the inner light of emotion.
In a forest somewhere, a tree is falling. Listen up.
-Jxo