(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Sean Meadows (June Of 44) formed Sonora Pine in Louisville toward the end of 1994 with two former members of Rodan, Tara Jane O'Neil (now on guitar and vocals) and Kevin Coultas, along with bassist Bob Weston, violinist Samara Lubelski (formerly of Pacer and also in Hall Of Fame), and pianist Rachel Grimes. The songs of Sonora Pine (Quarterstick, 1996) are all performed with a dreamy laziness, which in Gin Mill borders on a "lullaby" tone. The other lullabies (Ooltench, The Hook, Compass Lute, Goldmund, One Ring Machine) flow quietly and shyly, aware of the complexity of their accompaniments and the sparseness of their melodies. The instrumental tracks, Owl's Nest and Hoya Carnosa, attempt an impossible compromise between ambient music, the chamber-rock of Rachel's, and the cerebral arrangements of
Slint.
Tara Jane O'Neil also appears in Retsin with the other singer Cynthia Lynn Nelson. The group debuted with the eight songs of the mini-album Salt Lick (Simple Machines, 1995), featuring a "acid" country-rock style (Country Style Spoonin', Pulp) and sometimes dissonant (Mary B, Unsavory). Egg Fusion (Simple Machines, 1996), on the other hand, is an album of old-fashioned folk ballads, warm and introspective, although arranged in a sparse manner. Fly South and Kangaroo echo the Indigo Girls in an underground version. Duck Out and Barefoot & Stones employ surreal noises in the tradition of John Faheys eccentric country.
On Sonora Pine II (Quarterstick, 1997), O'Neil's formation is too intellectual, and too aware of its pedigree (Rodan and related groups) to truly move the listener. The soft litanies of Eek and Long Ago Boy recall more the Palace Brothers in their less cohesive moments than the Louisville groups (Slint, Rachel's, June Of 44, etc.). They are slow, whispered ballads that still retain a piece of the country-rock genetic code. But the atmosphere is everything, given the weakness of the vocals (truly a bit too "lo-fi") and the roughness of the arrangements. Snow's Cut Snapshot takes as its starting point what seems like a childrens nursery rhyme, but is immediately distorted into an underground murmur. The music should be lifted by the instruments, which, however, rarely manage to go beyond mere background chatter. The counterpoints between guitar, violin, organ, and bass give Cloister a funereal and metaphysical tone. The long instrumental closing the album, Linda Jo, perhaps achieves the best results, with a peculiar fusion of ambient music and rural dance, reminiscent of
Ry Cooder
and Slint.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Tara Jane O'Neil, who played bass in Rodan and sang in Sonora Pine,
writes all music and plays most instruments
(including piano, balalaika and banjo) on
Peregrine (Quartersticks, 1999),
a collection of simple, intimate, home-made ballads
that are the natural continuation of Retsin's 1996 album
(O'Neil's counterpart on that album, Cynthia Nelson, plays flute and harmonizes
on two tracks).
O'Neil has the charm of a country girl and the phrasing of sophisticated
soul-jazz singer (think Sade).
The languid atmosphere and swinging rhythm of A City In The North
Bullhorn Noon and 1st Street
are rich in musical harmony as well as psychological depth.
These are accessible compositions that can appeal to a much wider audience
than the one granted by Sonora Pine's alternative rock.
But O'Neil's program is more ambitious.
The quiet fairy tale of Sunday Song has a trance-like quality, a cross
between
Nick Drake and a Tibetan monk.
And so does the six-minute long Asters, a kaleidoscopic composition
that alternates a sleepy, jazzy refrain with
psychedelic lulling and flamenco trotting.
The surreal Ode To A Passing is well served by dissonant and
disproportionate instruments.
Chords float in the dilated harmony of The Fact Of A Seraph, not unlike
Tim Buckley's dreamy songs.
Here, O'Neill's art is better qualified as meditation, not just confession.
Hidden beneath the surface of O'Neil music is a
convoluted mass of feelings, which are better expressed in the instrumental
tracks: in the surreal guitar noises and colorful guitar tones of
Another Sunday,
and in the suave, quasi-classical sonata for guitar, piano and violin that
closes the album, A City In The South.
Thus... third, but not least, this is also a composer's album.
O'Neil has managed to produce a highly personal statement and a complex
work of art with the most modest of means. It would not be surprising to
find her in the league of the major songwriters of the next decade.
Hall Of Fame (Amish, 1997) is Dan Brown
(God Is My Co-pilot) and
Samara Lubelski (Sonora Pine). Their music is more similar to Sonora Pine
than GIMC. Better structured songs and subtle instrumental passages create
atmospheric wordless ballads.
First Came Love Then Came The Tree (Amish, 1999) further develops that
style at the border between acid jam and post-rock, and, again, the instrumental
scores are worth a lot more than the songs.
Samara Lubelski has also released the solo album
The Fleeting Skies (Social Registry, 2004)
The duo of Cynthia Nelson and Tara Jane O'Neil, aka Retsin,
released the pop-jazz sendup
Sweet Luck Of Amaryllis (Carrot Top, 1999) and
Cabin In The Woods (Carrot Top, 2001).
The latter retreats to a set of intimate folk ballads, under the shadow of
O'Neill's typical deconstruction experiments and with Ida Pearle's violin
replacing the rhythm section (Southwater, Carnival).
Volume One (Muss My Hair, 1999) is a nine-song mini-album credited
to Ida Retsin Family, which is a collaboration between Retsin and
Ida.
Tara Jane O'Neil's In The Sun Lines (Quarterstick, 2001) is another
quiet and surreal act of contrition.
O'Neil is a gifted narrator and a creative (to say the least) arranger and
this album certainly proves how one can create mesmerizing texture with
limited means.
Her weak point is the voice, a fragile whisper that rarely communicates any
emotion at all. She smartly buries it under the instruments, but doesn't have
enough of them to reduce the burden on the vocals.
The Winds You Came Here On is typical of how she leverages on
a carefully assembled soundscape to amplify the message.
High Wire is fascinating for its open structure,
somewhat reminiscent of Tim Buckley,
that lets notes float freely around the voice.
She gets the most of her limited technique and her even more limited orchestra.
The trancey, eight-minute lullaby This Morning achieves the most
abstract structure, surpassing John Fahey's transcendental folk with
delicate sonic tapestries of piano, guitar and tom-toms.
While intricate and, in many ways, bizarre, this is not some convoluted
avantgarde theory. Check the classical, dreamy, music box theme of
Your Rats Are, how it leans on a
quasi-raga jingle-jangle and how the ghostly harmonica rises out of the
subdued mayhem. It is tender, not cerebral.
At her best, O'Neil composes chamber music that could easily do without
the lyrics. Check how, within the instrumental All Jewels Small,
a languid violin melody is contrasted with a sharp guitar dissonance
while a harmonic is left to resonate in the background.
New Harm is three minutes of repetitive chords that create a bleak
atmosphere but then slowly reveal a radiant vision.
And the closing A Noise In The Head (the nadir of her paranoia)
is an absurdist mini-piece scored for found noises.
Lend her an orchestra and she will compose a symphony.
Retsin's five-song EP Moon Money Moon (Acuarela, 2002) marks the end
of the parable that took the duo from the quirky post-folk of the early
recordings to the flat acoustic country of the latest album
(Pauline and Susie, Duck Out).
Tara Jane O'Neill's Tjo Tko (Mr Lady, 2002)
is a masterful collection of chamber electronic folk music.
By mixing eccentric sound effects a` la Solex and plaintive acoustic guitar,
Choo, I Saw 3 and Juno refound her pastoral art in a more
urban context.
Meanwhile she also helped singer-songwriter Daniel Littleton record his mediocre debut Music For A Meteor Shower (2002).
Tara Jane O'Neill surprisingly converted to hard-rock with the EP
King Cobra (Troubleman Unlimited, 2003), but
Bones (Preservation, 2004) revealed instead a
more traditional folksinger, delving into personal dramas and idyllic impressionism that quirky electronic arrangements do not negate but enhance
(Enter This House). Most of the songs sound like leftovers from
previous albums, though.
She also published Who Takes A Feather (Mop Press), a collection of her
drawings and paintings.
Yet another Tara Jane O'Neill album, You Sound Reflect (Touch & Go, 2004),
further confused the issues: Take The Waking is
industrial ambient folk music and
Tea Is Better Than Poison is psychedelic chamber folk music
(both enchanting instrumental scores);
Known Perils (the most conventional of the set) sounds like a solemn traditional;
Howl sounds like Joan Baez singing atmopsheric easy-listening music;
The Poisoned Mine is a nostalgic country lullaby
and Love Song Long a hypnotic singalong;
while Famous Yellow Belly emits a sweet melody over a pounding beat,
and Without Push whispers dreamily over a dilated shuffle.
The overall feeling is that O'Neill harks back (more or less consciously)
to naive pop music of the 1960s while retaining her country roots and
adding the sensibility of an avantgarde artist.
Samara Lubelski's first solo album, The Fleeting Skies (Social Registry, 2005)
is a charming post-folk excursion that swings between old-time music and
dream-pop.
Her second solo album, Spectacular Of Passages (Social Registry, 2005),
is instead a collection of
slightly orchestral and mildly psychedelic tunes. The tasteful and eclectic
orchestration breathes life into her naive folk ballads.
Lubelski's vocals are front stage on Future Slip (Ecstatic Peace, 2009),
another delicate and opulent exercise in dream-pop.
Tara Jane O'Neil's In Circles (Quarterstick, 2006) was an album in the
spirit of the traditional folk-singers despite being one of her most personal.
Ditto for
Wings Strings Meridians (Square Root Books, 2007),
that emphasized the coupling of audio and visual art.
Tara Jane O'Neil's
A Ways Away (K, 2009) managed to convey an otherworldly atmosphere
with her most colorful orchestration yet.
Tara the singer is still quite pedestrian. Tara the songwriter is only occasionally
above average. But now Tara the producer has become a real master.
She crafts the gentle dreamy jangling singsong Dig In and the
Donovan-esque folk lullaby Drowning, and she captures
the angelic, ethereal quality of Simon & Garfunkel in A New Binding
On the other hand, In Tall Grass could be the cover of a
Kinks ditty,
and Howl and Sirena veer (unsuccessfully) into country-pop territory.
The heavily distorted chant Beast Go Along signals the beginning of a
more experimental phase, as do the charming
instrumental vignettes Pearl Into Sand and The Drowning Electric.
Tara Jane O'Neil's Where Shine New Lights (Kranky, 2014)
wrapped in psychedelic transcendent tones,
may denote the influence of Julia Holter's generation as it pushed the envelope of her dreamy style.
The core consists of fragile lo-fi slo-core droning elegies like Wordless in Woods,
which are sometimes too rarified
(The Signal Lift borders on ambient music for airports).
On the other hand, a bit more melody and
This Morning Glory sounds like a slow-motion Beatles lullaby.
The pulsating, ghostly Over Round In a Room Found and
the thick abrasive drone-scape of Bellow Below as Above open new
horizons.
The stately, repetitive mantra-like New Lights for a Sky closes them.
She contributed the droning 20-minute Medusa Smack to the album Circle Four (2015) split with Eleh (John Brien).
She collaborated with keyboardist Wilder Zoby to create Music to Clean To (2016), notably the two lengthy pieces Mothership (16:07) and Desert Bouquet (13:39).
She also composed the music for choreographer Jmy Kidd's dance piece Magical Diagonal (2016).
Tara Jane O'Neil (Gnomonsong, 2017) is two albums in one. One was recorded in Chicago with James Elkington, Gerald Dowd, Nick Macri, and Mark Greenberg. The other one was recorded at her home in California with Devin Hoff, Wilder Zoby, Walt McClements and Jim James.
The lively country-rock of Laugh is the exception. The bulk of the
album consists of
hazy and somnolent desert-pop melodies like Joshua, which reach the
moribund extreme of Purple and Pink.
Blow is soft pop in the tradition of Burt Bacharach.
She also composed the soundtrack for Nanako Hirose's film Yoake (2019).
O'Neil then recorded a "mixtape" of electronic versions of old songs by Boy George, Bananarama, Leonard Cohen, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Inxs: Songs for Peacock (2020).
