Elizabeth Cook and Lucinda Williams: Temporary Like a Lifer

 2016:

Elizabeth Cook: Exodus of Venus: If she has indeed experienced triumph over tragedy, as some some reviewers suggest or announce, that's great, but part of the artistic triumph or effect of the album itself is that I can't really be sure, especially when looking for unmistakably triumphant or coming-into-the-light themes---well, there's one, "Dharma Gate," which sure sounds like a cosmic transition point, where you might die and go to drug heaven, and then whatever comes next, if anything, or come back for another chance---or just where the penny's dropping, a moment of lucidity: "What are you doing? The chance, the choice is Now"--but that's more implied by the musical undercurrents than any upfront therapyspeak. It seems to come from and be personal experience, something ongoing, or a fresh memory, like the rest of the album.

She seems to be trying to make sense of chaotic scenes, all around and/or in her head, without reducing them in any way, incl. exploiting what's obviously melodramatic enough already. A couple of tracks still seem too even-handed, monotonous, as strung-to-dried-out stringer E. Cook reports again from the battlefield, over burnt-dry, steady rolls, with periodic guitar solos providing equally dry, electronic heat lightning: effective jolts, but they work better when she doesn't rely on them so much. Mostly, she lets the spare, somewhat metal-associated beats flex a bit more, even get to a kind of New Orleans hip hop rattle at times, and the guitars get to flex too, nothing musclebound.

Her voice eventually gets to flex, taking the band out for a run in "Straightjacket Love," which alternates a high lonesome hillbilly (nasal) waltz, with meth bursts: "Look out look sugar, Mama needs her drug, better come and save her, with yore/Straightjacket Love." Also, she chirps like Dolly Parton while taking her first tour of the methadone clinic, where Dr. Feelgood is all squeaky-clean and "socialistic," no bad boy appeal atall, but oh well, showing up for regular no-drama doses "adds some structure to the week," and she can sell what she doesn't use up.

Prob be some argument, but to me, for now (especially with some of the guitars on relative mainstreamer Miranda Lambert's new set not that far from the more consistently "out" sounds of Lucinda Williams and cookin' Cook), this is a country album: the pitch and cadence of her voice, the turns of phrases, as written and sung, guide and shadow the grooves, bringing out the bluesy elements of crossroads sounds, without trying to pretend they're pre-digital; the subject matter, layers of atmospheric consistency---the fixations of an addict, recovering enough for perspective on same---though getting the fix, "getting straight," as they used to say, can provide enough detachment for moments of insight even inside the thing, as "Dharma Gate" and others suggest---all merge with certain classic themes of country, even if she's not meditating on a shot glass all of the time.

From a later online discussion:

Going for what I called her "sonic grid"---that dark, spare, hard-edged but flexible framework for the throughline of her narrative themes---has some of the same appeal as Stapleton and Eric Church's recent albums, something of a Jamey Johnson atmosphere too, but I doubt that she expects as much radio play as they've gotten. The main challenge is writing about this stuff at all, without becoming too dependent on lurid imagery or therapyspeak, or seeming evasive. Her current solution seems to be just to begin in the middle, to tell it like she might have told it then, in her most self-aware, lucid and candid moments. And maybe she's still in the middle of it, for all we know--but I have the impression (because the self-awareness etc is so sustained here) that she's been through some kind of therapy, with whatever lapses experienced or still possible, and of course the idea is to know yourself to be a recovering addict, present tense, no matter how long you've been sober. So, while these songs may not be the deepest, as Edd prev. mentioned, this is how far she's gotten writing-wise (with anything she'd want to show us now, at least).

The other dark thang Ah thank Ah love now is Lucinda Williams' The Ghosts of Highway 20, which is similar to Cook's album conceptually, incl. the sonic grid, although here we get up to four guitars---Williams regular Val McCallum, with guests Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz, who plays acoustic as well as joining the electric mesh, along with Williams' own strings (think she's credited with some acoustic too): intricate treble skeletons, sometimes whole nervous systems, though never too detailed, more like instant afterimages, visions already falling away---what her voice and words would say if they could, if they weren't bound to testify down here on earth, in the dry and moist and funky shadows of the barn (the voice, not slurring as much as on some previous albums, but occasionally decaying, as all things must, especially when "all of my thoughts turn to dust," also the bass and drum kits and hand drums are funky shadows etc.).

But the guitars are light through holes in the roof, and also big blowing chunks of her family tree on the title track, for instance, and she's not trying to grab hold of those, just be mindful of them and dodge and otherwise work around them. Like several of the lyrics are about different kinds of solace. The thoughts turning to dust are from her father's notes (he died with Alzheimer's), about what he gets when he might expect tears, and the guitars burn that dust, instead of having to sling around tons of sobs, so it works out pretty well, musically, anyway. And Woody Guthrie's "House of Earth" channels a witchy woman, who will show you how to make better boys, also you will take this back to your wife and she will make better girls--she foretells this, in a stoned lullaby sway, while sometimes sliding into him---"you will leave drops of honey" on the couch, she/he will leave money---although (there's a punchline of sorts).

Yadda yadda, some of it doesn't work, but another effective use of vocal clarity-to-decay comes in "Louisiana Story," and also I like the effects of two extended grooves, "Doors of Heaven" (kind of parade gospel, she gets in There and struts her stuff), and "Faith and Grace," (a big ol storefront church on Main Street, for Exiles, but not for choirs, or handclappers) remind me, as does Cook's album, of the pitch for this promo I haven't listened to yet: supposedly, it's metal and associated atmospheres for recovering addicts doing yoga, who aren't scared of triggering sounds, who don't want the sweety-pie BS of New Age,

Their 2020 releases:

Living with

Elizabeth Cook album Aftermath out 9/11, according to Australia Rolling Stone. Produced by Butch Walker. New single (w link to video in article): In "Perfect Girls of Pop," Cook mines a vein of restless, jangling college rock, but Bevis & Butthead might not object: bass & drums sound upfront here, guitar also goes to deeper twang at times (and her voice keeps it kinda country, ditto sad frustrated lyrics, given strong broody ominous support by music)(walkie-talkie dispatch, injected from her site: If you think too much it's the land of indecision if you don't think enough it's the imprecision I guess I just don't understand the form)Also has track list etc. (did not know that she has a fishing and interview show): https://au.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/elizabeth-cook-perfect-girls-of-pop-new-album-aftermath-12987/

I like Elizabeth Cook's new one. She finally escaped Nashville gravity, suited up like Bowie in the empty spaces of our great country. https://www.nashvillescene.com/music/features/article/21143243/elizabeth-cook-takes-country-music-as-her-subject-on-aftermath

― eddhurt,

I've held off on reading Edd's Elizabeth Cook coverage, not wanting to be influenced while trying to wrap my own ears and brain around Aftermath, which I *think* I'm getting/is blowing mah mahnd: right off, and the more I listen, it sounds like de- and re-constructed (might be some implicit historical irony in there) country, the keyword being "country"---her voice: accent, timbre, phrasing, also phrasing of countriod words, themes, narrative, along with elements of tune and instrumentation---all getting the sonic patent medicine treatments---Hank and co. back on the Hadacol Express, comin' round the mountain ("They'll all come to see her when she comes"? Cook sings something like that), via some kind of style-associative space-time warp/refraction (for instance, puckering into quiet eye clarity after much sweaty-to-feverish, intent hookstorm voyaging---fluttering in the dented chrome wake of for instance "Stanley By God Terry," which first came out of her sweet childhood barstool views of the grown-ups playing tunes, and follows them down the long country highway of yesterday's bad and badder news, with no turns left to take, just rolling on).

Edd mentions Bowie in his post of the link: yeah, could see that, like Bowie cutting up the 70s and some of his favorite sounds---also Sturgill, especially on Sound and Fury, with his own unmistakably country voice and 'tude, bringing a "vintage" sound that never quite was, an alt.universe electro-pop-boogie express that I tagged ZZ Rex when it streaked through here last year.

And if Aftermath is Bowieoid futuristic, a future that never quite was, outside of pulp frames, yet tapped again for its kozmik sexy space suit flotation appeal, pushing off from the walls, as he did it, why not now, when we know, as Bowie said, and more than ever, that whatever future there will be, won't be this cool, for the most part, if any. Suspect Cook's got that in there too, one way or another.

(later) Of course country, born as a genre in the 1920s, has traditionally had to respond to the existence of other genres, either making room for/re-adjusting elements of those, or making them conspicuous absences---meaning, you know, pop country, and the kind more likely favored by No Dep, and the kind that plays county fairs and cover-song bars etc. These Cook and Simpson albums are good examples of how to do it, how to make use of rock etc.--not the only way, but good--unlike most of Margo Price's That's How Fleetwood Mac and 70s Third Tier Top 40 Rumors Get Started, which works sometimes, but bad on you for producing, Sturgill, even if you were just doing what she wanted.

(later still)Got the CD of E.C.'s Aftermath, to wrap my head around it w/o the distractions of YouTube, although it sounds---great? on there, not sure, so freaky, despite the fact that it's only country-as-hell phrasing (vocal and writing) tropes, mashed in w other perspectives on female experience in what's left and right of the Land o' Cotton (incl. Mather, also mentions Daddy Increase), with the aforementioned familiar instrumentation, and yes she latches on to thee rootsier rhythms of Zep, also "Don't Fear The Reaper" etc.--all of which works okay on the mp3 that came w CD, but on the boombox I must have lots of bass with enhanced treble "surround"---so the words get crowded, but she's got 'em all on her site (also those of Exodus of Venus), and they deserve clarity---as I read while I listen, I hear 'em perfectly, imagine that---check here: https://www.elizabeth-cook.com/aftermath

Oh yeah, and the wry, rueful pellucid, flickering closer, "Mary, The Submissing Years," (after the Cotton Mather-pickin,' flay-rockin', "Rabies" with "scabies" with "babies" rhymer "Half-Hung Mary," based on a poem by Margaret Atwood) sounds quite different from all above, and yet not, considering the way it (now more quietly) flexes poise and sense---she says it's inspired by Prine's "Jesus, The Missing Years," amen to that.

PS: I tried the Cook CD in a more modern boombox, more options (playing and recording from MP3 etc.)---tried several EQ presets and they all sound good, bringing vocals into the foreground w no instruments too close. Panasonic RX-D55. Not every word is crystal clear, but might be intentional, so as to encourage more listening. The overall effect always has been expressive and expressionist, with neuro-skeletal hooks that wake up and scuttle through my typing when it's under the most pressure, of trying to turn into writing. Although some hooks are more conceptual than sonic, even: One woman---who might be an actress, an escort, a mistress, a multiple agent, a moving target of yet another kind---carries much info, openly notes the way the planet is going in strange night weather, recalling a drive down the coast from Hollywood, in The Last Tycoon)(not too far from the girl that Stahr takes to his unfinished dream house, the cage for his Great Love, now RIP)

In one last attempted sum: Soulful post-sadcore sweaty silver spacesuit tequila moon ring fireletter survey country for an electoral and census year, back from the future, whut's left of it. Get it while you can.

Well okay---from later email to Edd:

yes...(memory as fuel)...getting feverish at times...set the controls for the heart of the sun...as w Page, Prince, Bowie when he's good...and ...totally her...lots of other nice things

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