SHE by Rebecca Martin

24 bit / 96k

Follow along while you listen. Read the lyrics to SHE
https://rebeccamartin.com/she/

Over the last three decades, Rebecca Martin has shaped a singular career devoted to the beauty and possibility of pure creative discovery. After getting her start as co-founder of the pioneering jazz-pop duo Once Blue (a widely beloved act that toured with the likes of Emmylou Harris and Squeeze), the New York-based singer/songwriter went on to release a series of acclaimed solo albums animated by the quiet force of her captivating vocals, and collaborating along the way with luminaries like Argentine pianist Guillermo Klein and legendary jazz drummer Paul Motian. In one of her boldest turns to date, Martin’s new album SHE marks her first body of work made entirely on her own—a profoundly rewarding leap she perceives as something of an artistic awakening. “It was time to strip everything away and to present the sound of my voice,” says Martin, who also works as an educator and community organizer and penned the new songs for SHE over the course of seven years. “I was ready to take this on now.”

Produced by Martin and recorded in Portugal by Mário Barreiros, SHE arrives as her first full-length project of original songs since 2013’s Twain (an LP made with her husband and longtime collaborator, esteemed jazz bassist Larry Grenadier and produced by Pete Rende). In an evolution of the finespun musicality the New York Times once praised as “almost radical in its utter lack of flash,” SHE’s 13 songs encompass a stark yet strangely enchanting arrangement of voice and acoustic guitar—ultimately achieving a potent minimalism that’s wholly poetic in its nuanced command of sonic language. Threaded with Martin’s impressionistic reflections on identity, transformation, and the often-mystifying passage of time, the result is an album that invites complete surrender to its unhurried splendor and—in turn—creates abundant room for the audience to drift into a similar state of meditative contemplation.

Intended to be absorbed in its entirety, SHE opens on the delicate melodies of “Play for me”: one of several newly reimagined renditions of Martin’s earlier work (in this case, a cut from her critically lauded 2004 LP People Behave Like Ballads), presented here as “an invitation for whoever’s listening to sit down and walk through this with me,” in her words. Over the course of the album, Martin casts an ineffable spell with her intuitively composed guitar parts and harmonies—an element she regards as a chorus of characters in a play made up of interwoven tone poems. On “Just another heartbreak,” for instance, Martin’s layered vocals lend a tender humanity to her meditation on violence and empathy, while the luminous harmonies “The crass are cradled too” embody a heartfelt grasping for common ground in times of intense polarization. Closing out with “East Andover” (a wistful reminiscence of her hometown in Maine), SHE altogether comprises a selection of gently immersive songs that unfold with exquisite subtlety—all while imparting a bracing emotional truth that leaves the listener indelibly moved.

A truly inimitable vocalist who emerged from the New York City jazz community in the early ’90s, Martin graces every moment of SHE with the clarity and character of her distinct vocal phrasing. “In the past I approached singing almost like a sport, but now the goal is to express the lyrics as clearly as possible: to feel my way through it, without ever being calculated,” she says. In her dedication to unlocking her most authentic voice, in every sense of the term, Martin has continually faced a challenge familiar to so many artists in the modern era: the struggle to carve out the time needed for creative incubation while navigating the endless demands of work and family life. “Years ago, as a new mom, I became deeply engaged in the local community, which led me down a road I never would’ve predicted,” says Martin, who moved upstate to Kingston, NY in 2002 and later served as executive director of the Kingston Land Trust and director of community partnerships for Hudson Riverkeeper (an environmental nonprofit). “No matter what is going on, I am compelled to find space for music. It’s my lifeforce.”

As revealed throughout SHE, Martin’s commitment to creating space informs nearly all aspects of her artistry, including everything from the album’s sparse orchestration to her underlying desire to summon a gratifying sense of stillness within all those who listen. And in moving through the illuminating process of bringing SHE to life, Rebecca Martin eventually found her way toward a certain clearing of psychic space. “The songs span many years so in a sense, I put the past on tape here. But the meaning of SHE could have applied to any body of my original songs. ‘She’ is a constant guide that helps me to make sense of the world without limits through poems and sound.”

Over the last three decades, Rebecca Martin has shaped a singular career devoted to the beauty and possibility of pure creative discovery.

www.rebeccamartin.com