Ripely
Pine, Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's first studio album,
was released Tuesday, February 19, 2013. On it she yells, "I'm a ghost and you
all know it. I’m singin' songs and I ain't slowin'. Was a fragile thing and I
goddamn dropped it. Picked the pieces up and I put ‘em in my locket."
I’ve been listening to different
versions of this song, "Bird Balloons," for years now. I happened to win
tickets to see Lady Lamb from the amazing MIT radio station, WMBR, when I lived in Boston, and went
to the show with zero expectations. I looked her up ahead of time but couldn’t
find much. She was an adorable long-haired ghost from Portland, Maine—that’s
all I knew. When I walked into the tiny upstairs bar to catch her—and only her
(and her electric guitar)—I was truly pleased the place was jammed up and
sweaty. The patio door was open to our backs and a dry February breeze spiraled
through our coat sleeves as we settled in; then, out of nowhere, Aly Sapltro,
only 19 at the time, passionately roaming around underneath her fringe, broke
into a magnificent storm of songs.
After the performance—which left
everyone kind of reeling and head-worn (a friend of mine actually passed out
and puked mid show)—fans milled around looking for something to do, like
talk to the girl who just sang to their souls, but she was gone, slipped out
the back stair.
But it wasn't long before she got
pinned. Having home-recorded her songs—many of which are on Ripely Pine—in her parent’s basement, and hand-distributed them to a Portland, Maine, record store, the only way to get a hold of her music was to know someone who
had a CD, or pick one up at one of her few New England shows.
Then, eventually, it wasn't impossible to find her online. All of a sudden, there were a bunch of videos of her on stage rattling people's brains in the tenderest way, playing at local radio studios (a year or so later she played NPR’s), and (shit, man) paying tribute to the fallen heroes of the Boston music scene (champions of her work). It was around 2010—when the Boston Music Awards awarded her 'Folk Artist of the Year'—that Lady Lamb the Beekeeper became a palpable vision, a real butterfly.
Then, eventually, it wasn't impossible to find her online. All of a sudden, there were a bunch of videos of her on stage rattling people's brains in the tenderest way, playing at local radio studios (a year or so later she played NPR’s), and (shit, man) paying tribute to the fallen heroes of the Boston music scene (champions of her work). It was around 2010—when the Boston Music Awards awarded her 'Folk Artist of the Year'—that Lady Lamb the Beekeeper became a palpable vision, a real butterfly.
After that first show, I listened to her
handmade CDR (called Mammoth Swoon) until I knew all the lyrics to
certain tracks, including two you’ll find on Ripely Pine: "Aubergine"—in which she sings about someone "with the
heart that won’t show it’s face!"—and; "Crane Your Neck"—in which
she painstakingly explains:
"It’s a goddamn joke how we can
hurt even in the sun. For a heart beats in the best in a bed beside the one
that it loves. Oh yes, the heart beats the best when in a head, death becomes
irrelevant. 'Cause if you're dreamin' 'bout dying, then you’re not really
livin', darlin'. You gotta be starvin', you gotta be starvin' for it! And if
you’re crying in the moon, in the sun, you better lift up that chin!"
All the while, a distant shimmer
of road-weary guitar helps lift the tune. The song finishes in a toe-tapping dance.
Ripely Pine has all the tinkling instrumentation ("Rooftop") and
choral evolution ("The Nothing Part II") of an artist who walked for miles to set up camp at the
loveliest site. There’s an ocean and a big nest of flapping birds, there’s a
mountain in the distance, and all the stars are out to stare at. When you watch
someone get to a place like that, you feel joyful.
Best part is, we can all enjoy
it, because that’s what Lady Lamb the Beekeeper's music is all about! Awesome
guitar work, beautiful crescendos of light, breathtaking decrescendos of
darkness, and a voice nearly as raw as the bark it was carved from up in the
scapes of Maine, jabbed directly into our hearts.
Grade: A -
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