Basia Bulat
Oh My Darling

I'm not one of those types who say "I want the pizza with more stuff on it,” firstly because the verb 'want' doesn't really fit into my vocabulary (it's among the verbs I try to use the least), and secondly because I would prefer an onion pizza just to keep good breath.

And I think that this “Oh My Darling” (Rough Trade 2007) is a bit like one of your favorite pizzas because, let's face it, who doesn't like at least one type of pizza??? Maybe with two simple things placed there just to give a bit of color and enhance the meal with almost nothing (for the eyes but a whole world to the palate).

Comparing pizza to this jewel perhaps depends on the promotional format of the album that I received in the mail (and here I was expecting a sparkling booklet attached to the album) that is circular in shape, just like the traditional plate pizza.

Comparing the pizza to the album helps me convey that in an era dominated by synthesizers and similar contraptions, sounds blasted to the max, fluorescent colors everywhere, simplicity still exists as in pizza, and also in this work by a young girl just over twenty from Canada (specifically London, Ontario, a place not particularly tied to pizza).

The simplicity of a fantastic album start that lets you sway in the hammock of a "Before I Knew" made of hand claps, delicate arpeggios, and a warm and welcoming voice and subsequently a growing "I Was A Daughter,” reinforces the beauty of the previous "Before I Knew" and the interest towards the following tracks. Then we get to track number five, "Snakes And Ladders,” where personally I noticed more than in the others the vocal technique and Basia's passion for her singing, my favorite.

I'm happy to have found this album, and perhaps it's what I seek in every listening, the carefree nature of a collection of little stories (“melodramatic popular songs” as Basia herself calls them) and I'll stop here in the fairly rarefied description of the album.

As in all (even if few) of my reviews, it doesn't show what genre might be involved (it makes little sense to me), I can put down a dozen clear and round letters that may give an idea: pop-folk with hand claps that have something to do with Devendra Banhart's indie-folk, resembling his albums in the more cheerful songs, and the old-school Neil Young and Bob Dylan can be felt passing through (an inevitable thing).

I allow myself to take a small part from another review of an interview with the sweet Basia Bulat:

"(...) I have been influenced more by reading than by listening, even though I think it's too soon to accurately assess who or what has impacted my way of writing and thinking."... and it is precisely for this humility and clarity also reflected in the various songs in the album that I want to give a nice encouraging 5 to a talent that I hope will bloom, for an album that wedges itself between one neuron and another (for those having more than one) and can't leave without making the hands clap a little. You, listener of depth or not, will not be satisfied with just one taste and again another pizza.