This will be quick, but I had to share.
Just when I start thinking some forms of social media are there only for people to show off their egos and the sandwiches they had for lunch, someone I follow tweets a link to something which stops me in my tracks. And so it was that Rose Cousins – we’ve established I love me some Rose Cousins songwriting, yes? – tweeted a link to a video by Hannah Georgas. I clicked, because I value the musical interests of people whose music interests me, and found myself at a website full of videos from an artist I can’t believe I’ve never heard before.
You might have seen Georgas on the road backing up Kathleen Edwards, but apparently her solo career has been cranking for five years. I feel late to the game, but – better late than never, right? Check her out:
Yes. So, this Hannah Georgas gal? She is something else. Her voice bears an obvious resemblance to Beth Orton, with all its breathy, intrinsic musicality. The accompaniment is dreamy, spacey, atmospheric – again, there’s a Beth Orton comparison there. But it also calls to my mind the dark wonder of old school PJ Harvey. She’s not making Americana music, but what is she making? It’s not rock and roll. It’s not folk. It’s certainly not the blues. It’s just music – music for the sake of manipulating sound into mental images. Building landscapes with the bending of notes against phrasing. It’s not just atmosphere she’s drawing up, though. Her lyrics aren’t nonsense – there’s genuine, nuanced, complex emotion, whose verbal terrain lays an exquisite foundation for the path the rest of the composition takes. She’s working something out here.
By the time she gets to the song’s apex – “There is magic on this planet” – it’s like she’s channeling something. She’s not pushing out the dynamics with her body, with her performance. The song does that on its own. She’s tapping into something.
She’s touring Canada for the rest of the winter, and it looks like she’ll be dipping back into the US in February. Check her out.
