Maggie Sayles: Reviews

Sayles, Maggie - Trust | Drukuj | Email
Napisał: Artur Chachlowski
30.05.2007.

Maggie Sayles pochodzi z Portland w stanie Oregon. Na co dzień pracuje w charakterze producenta multimedialnego, lecz jej prawdziwą życiową pasją jest pisanie piosenek. Właśnie ukazał się jej album zatytułowany „Trust”, na którym Maggie prezentuje 9 utworów osadzonych w tradycji dobrego rockowego grania, utrzymanego w tradycji legendarnych bardów, jak Bob Dylan, Gordon Haskel, czy Bruce Springsteen. Po kilkukrotnym przesłuchaniu płyty przyszło mi nawet na myśl określenie, że Maggie Sayles to taki „Bob Dylan w spódnicy”.

Maggie obdarzona jest ciekawym głosem, który budzi pewne skojarzenia z Kate Bush. Wprawdzie nie stosuje ona teatralnej maniery wokalnej, jaką to często na swoich płytach demonstrowała Kaśka, ale w wielu utworach przy uważnym wsłuchaniu się wydaje się, że obie panie posiadają dość zbliżoną barwę głosu.

Piosenki Maggie nie mieszczą się w kategorii słodkiego popu dla nastolatków. Jej utwory posiadają solidny fundament rockowy, na którym opierają się misterne konstrukcje poszczególnych piosenek. Wykonane są one przez Maggie i towarzyszące jej grono zaproszonych muzyków. Imponująco prezentuje się gra perkusisty Richarda Rophfusa, doskonale gra basista Albert Reda (to, co wyprawia on w instrumentalnej części utworu „Only You” powoduje, że ręce same składają się do oklasków), świetnie spisują się gitarzyści (oprócz Maggie na gitarach grają Tim Ellis, Doug Rowell, Kelly Morrison i Don Thompson), a w kilku utworach Maggie towarzyszy wokalnie Rex McNew (przepysznie wypadają ich duety w utworach „Please” i „Where”). W swoje rockowe piosenki Maggie w umiejętny sposób wplata elementy innych gatunków. Przeuroczo brzmi finałowa sekcja utworu „Love’s Desdain” z porywającą gitarową partią flamenco. „Rock The Cradle” to ballada utrzymana w stylu reggae i brzmi ona trochę, jak pamiętne nagranie „I Shot The Sheriff” w wykonaniu Erica Claptona. Ponadto elementy bluesa przewijają się w ślicznym utworze „The Key”.

Na płycie „Trust” znaleźć można zresztą więcej takich smaczków, muzycznych perełek i chwytających za serce dźwięków. Na osobne wyróżnienie zasługują mądre i niebanalne teksty poszczególnych utworów. Zasadniczo dotyczą one różnych aspektów miłości i wszelkich uczuć z nią związanych: nostalgii, tęsknoty, samotności, ale dotykają też tematów tabu, jak molestowanie dzieci („Rock The Cradle”), wydarzeń na placu Tiananmen w czerwcu 1989 roku („I See Red”), czy okrutnej zbrodni („Sharp Shooter”). Maggie porusza te drażliwe tematy i śpiewa o nich tak, że nie sposób pozostać obojętnym.

Podsumowując, jej twórczość to dobre rockowe piosenki z mądrym tekstem i prowokującym do myślenia przesłaniem. Taka jest właśnie płyta „Trust”. Wprawdzie stylistycznie daleko jej do konwencjonalnie rozumianego art rocka, ale biorąc pod uwagę oczywisty fakt, że każda muzyka dzieli się po prostu na dobrą i złą, to piosenki w wykonaniu Maggie Sayles zdecydowanie zaliczają się do tej pierwszej kategorii.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Napisał: Artur Chachlowski
01.07.2007.
Maggie Sayles comes from Portland, Oregon. Most of the time, she works as a multimedia producer, but she has a real passion in her life: the songwriting. Her album entitled “Trust” has just been released. Maggie presents on it 9 songs, which make me think of a good rock playing, similar to the works of Bob Dylan, Gordon Haskell or Bruce Springsteen.

Maggie has an interesting voice, which arouses associations with Kate Bush. Although she doesn’t sing in a theatrical manner as Kate, after cautious listening to Maggie’s compositions it seems that both ladies have the similar timbre of voices. What’s important, fortunately Maggie’s music can’t be classed as sweet female pop music for teenagers. Her songs are based on solid rock foundation. Maggie accompanied by the group of invited musicians performs all of them. Richard Rophfus’s (dr) performance is very impressive, Albert Reda’s (bg) work is also stunning (his play in instrumental part of “Only You” make listener nothing else then enchanted), the guitarists’ work is also excellent (apart from Maggie, who play this instrument there are also Tim Ellis, Doug Rowell, Kelly Morrison and Don Thompson delivering extremely nice guitar parts) and in several tracks Maggie is accompanied vocally by Rex McNew (their best duets are in “Please” and “Where”). Maggie weaves elements of other genres into her rock songs very skillfully. The final section of “Love’s Disdain”, with the guitar flamenco part is just charming. “Rock The Cradle” is kind of reggae ballad and it sounds pretty close to the memorable Eric Clapton’s recording “I Shot The Sheriff”. What’s more, there are also elements of blues in a beautiful track entitled “The Key”.

Anyway, on "Trust” CD one can find more such flavors, musical pearls and heart-moving sounds. Wise and not trivial lyrics deserve a separate reference. All in all, they concern the different aspects of love and other feelings connected with it: nostalgia, longing, loneliness, but they also touch taboo subjects such as molesting children (“Rock The Cradle”), the events on Tiananmen square in June 1989 (“I See Red”) or a cruel crime (“Sharp Shooter”). Maggie sings about those touchy subjects in a way, which makes it impossible to be indifferent to them.

To sum up, her work is a good melodic rock with wise lyrics and a thought provoking messages. This is what the “Trust” album is like. Stylistically it is far from conventional art rock, but if we take into account the obvious fact that the music can be good or bad, then Maggie Sayles’s songs definitely belong to the former category.

Translated by: Kachat

Maggie Sayles has a beautiful voice. That was my first thought when I heard some samples of her new CD Trust. Initially I thought that she had the perfect voice for pop or jazz, and she does, however she manages to wrap that silky voice around rocking guitars and comes out sounding something similar to female fronted prog-rock bands like Mostly Autumn, which by no coincidence is one of my favorite bands.

Sayles splits the songwriting duties with Kelly Morrison, who also contributes guitar and bass parts. They form a good team and so does combining her talents with Rex McNew, who serves as her vocal partner on several occasions for both lead and background. She finds Trust in the process of the music and thereby creates an entirely separate universe from the rest of the world in the studio through her words, feelings, and vocals that make you melt in the palm of her hand. I am sure this entire process had to happen on different levels for the artists involved because of the vast breadth of talents from the several contributors.

The trust factor is one that is earned over time and something that developed and was then translated through several listens for me. You get the feeling you may have something special in your hand when the desire to listen repeatedly becomes overwhelming. For these ears that is a healthy barometer of how I really feel about an album. The end game being, I loved the recording and would highly recommend it.

I really appreciate the way the album opened up with “Down On Love,” a track that starts as a pitter patter of rain drops outside your window into a gradual hard driving rain of electric guitar licks that leaves you hanging in anticipation for the next track. As it turns out the following track “Only You,” is decidedly more energetic and powerful musically. “Please” is my first pick for a single because of its hooks and give and take female to male vocals (once again similar to Mostly Autumn) between Maggie and Rex, her steadfast partner straight on through this ambitious effort.

I heard a focused and definite balance of instrumentation throughout this effort as the music ebbed and flowed according to Maggie’s emotive and refined vocals. The foundation of all of this is rock, and then everything falls in line after that, such as art or prog rock. I suppose it depends on your preferred listening and interpretation. There were also some very noticeable rudiments of jazz fused here and there (note the Latin acoustic picking on “Loves Disdain”). On the closing track “Rock The Cradle,” the guitar style is a smart reggae rhythm interwoven with subtle leads that keep it all honest. The song structures are not simplistic by any means, sometimes the changes are rapid and complex and other times it comes at you with a slower more predictable pace. When I think about all of these different angles and approaches it does makes sense, but only after soaking it all up keenly more than once, that is a prerequisite for this type of music.

I promise you that one listen of this CD will not suffice and every time you give it a spin your enjoyment level will increase. The musicianship is duly noted and the all around talents of Maggie Sayles is most impressive on Trust.

© MuzikReviews.com-http://www.muzikreviews.com
April 5, 2007-Keith “MuzikMan” Hannaleck