The Hidden Words - "Dis". These many months later, Hidden Words are preparing to release Free Thyself from the Fetters of the World, their debut. This is still a Bahá'í folk enterprise; still a band that includes two-thirds of the Unicorns. I remain perplexed by the goals of the project, or at least by its choice of methodology. I remain disappointed that these songs - sung in English, French and Spanish - communicate so little. Verses from the Báb, set to guitars, viola, Jamie Thompson's suitcase percussion. Alden Penner is one of the country's most gifted songwriters, yet these songs are scarcely written. Perhaps to Penner, scripture sings. But to me, these lyrics are just lofty phrases, hollow wisdom. The best lyrics communicate an experience - they articulate feeling in a way that pierces the listener, stirs them. Sometimes it is a very tender thing, but it is a provocation, a disruption, an upsetting. And Hidden Words' lyrics upset me far less than anything Penner ever wrote for Clues. Perhaps this band aspires to grace, but its music is just shambling, pretty.

All the same, it is often very pretty. Penner's gifts for melody & harmony have not gone away. He picks his chords like a man who knows the exit to a maze; or like a man who tying intricate knots, each with its own solution. There is something witchy to the music's arc and crest, inherited from the best. And it's catchy, like a burr or the measles, like a flipped nickel, sailing through the air.

[Facebook/Montreal release party on Saturday]

Nina Simone - "Suzanne". Nina steals Leonard Cohen's magic, dips his Torah in orange juice, brushes that dirt off her shoulder. She knows the sorcery of glassy puddles, of clean sheets, of buses that are right on time. Her mysticism is slangy, liberated, knows just where to go for brunch - but it's just as subtle, learnéd, it'll jackknife in the street.

[buy]

(photo is of the Moses Bridge)