Janet Beveridge Bean found her own voice in her 2003 Dragging
Wonder Lake after more than a decade of drumming for indie
power-pop band Eleventh Dream Day, and harmonizing as half of the
proto-alt-country duo Freakwater. Fans who were startled and captivated
by the spare, twilight aesthetic of her songs, and the nuanced,
atmospheric character of her solo vocals, have eagerly awaited a
follow-up—and Cathmawr Yards almost counts.
True, Bean’s again half of a duo, and her partner, James Elkington
(The Zincs), wrote most of the songs. But the pair share a taste for
risk, and they’re simpatico in their darker leanings: The name “The
Horse’s Ha” comes from a Dylan Thomas short story about zombies, set in
a graveyard called Cathmawr Yards. Fred Lonberg-Holm, the go-to cellist
in Chicago’s thriving avant-jazz scene, has followed Bean into this new
venture from her previous ones, and Elkington knows how to write songs
that could be Bean’s own.
After the opening track, “Plumb,” establishes how much Elkington’s
Nick Cave-like voice and phrasing can diverge from Bean’s lilt,
Cathmawr Yards settles into a comfortable compatibility.
Elkington’s arrangements build on Dragging‘s experimental folk
ambiance with denser instrumentation and occasionally lounge-y
subversion, as in the bossa nova beat of “Left Hand.” The instrumental
“Liberation” is a lovely, sprawling, experimental orchestral jam; an
extended interlude on “Map of Stars” suggests music from every culture
under the firmament; and “Rising Moon” takes “spookiest love song”
honors.
This article appears in Jun 18-24, 2009.
