Jane Siberry
The Walking

Will I be able to review this album worthily? The readers have the final say; I'm not feeling particularly inspired, but I think it's worth giving it a try, at the very least. I'm not even sure if this quirky disclaimer is the ideal way to start the discussion, but that's how it is, Jane Siberry inspires me with this feeling of awe mixed with insecurity, perhaps because female singer-songwriters have offered me more idiosyncrasies and fleeting flirtations than positive and lasting relationships. With Jane, there was a sporadic and emotional approach that seriously risked completely obscuring the beauty and charm of her work for me; my impatience is to blame, my wanting to find a sudden spark at all costs, and Jane is certainly not easy to decipher: she is a complex, elusive artist with multiple facets. From the new wave of her beginnings to the folk of her more recent works, the constant is a cryptic, spiritual style that's open to multiple sounds and inspirations. Jane Siberry creates great pop melodies and then deconstructs them, dilates them, enriches them, making each of her songs a theatrical spectacle.

A blurred photograph as the cover further underscores this predisposition for indecipherability, inviting the listener to search and pay attention. A perfect image for an album like this "The Walking" from 1987, which is not even one of her major commercial successes; given the inspiration and melodic perfection flaunted in these eight songs, one can easily hypothesize that with a more "easy" and radio-friendly approach, the album would have sold much more, perhaps to the point of making its author something more than a cult artist. But in that case, it would no longer be "The Walking"; the sensation of ineffable gracefulness that enchanted me would be lost. Accessibility and experimentation, emotion and sophistication, a complex and perfectly intertwined canvas. "Red High Heels" is the focal point, the expressive sum of the entire album: just a few piano notes, the right ones, are enough to open the first breach in the listener's heart. What happens in the nearly eight minutes that follow is an irresistible assault; delicate, poetic, bittersweet words, an unforgettable voice, and a dynamic, luminous, vital, enthusiastic progression. Ethereal light and a vivid, pulsating heart, united in an indissoluble union. A continuous surprise, one theatrical hit after another, perfectly harmonized contrasts, and stellar levels of creativity and inspiration; a sparkling, bold, and irresistible pop song like "Ingrid And The Footman" shares the stage with pieces like "Goodbye", with its contemplative and sweetly melancholic grace slipping swiftly into ominous and troubled atmospheres, and the poignant ballad "Lobby," with sighs, delicacy, and a lost, fragile, confused spirit.

"The Walking (And Constantly)" starts slowly, almost with uncertainty, circumspection, only to break the dam, imposing an intense and compelling rhythm, while "Lena Is A White Table" prefers to lull itself placidly in a dreamlike and enchanting fantasy, the sparkle of a music box and playful, light singing, full of counterpoints and graceful vocalizations that occasionally plunge into restless new wave reminiscences, only to rise again and return to dreaming as if nothing happened. "The White Tent The Raft" and "Bird In The Gravel", the two most torrential and complex tracks of the album with their ten-minute duration, strategically placed as the opening and closing, perfectly represent the dawn and dusk of this music spectacle; a dawn that brings with it a powerful, enigmatic, and visionary charge, which explodes in lively and colorful funky interludes, a fragmented, complicated sunset full of echoes and soft lights, in the middle a parentheses of choral theatricality that emerges almost with difficulty and is inevitably reabsorbed by a flow that finally concludes with a vivid but blurred and expanded crescendo.

You will notice that I have deliberately minimized references to music genres and various labels, because for me, this is not a pop or experimental or electronic album or any other description; it is simply "The Walking" by Jane Siberry, a marvel. Someone with more specific expertise than I have, who decides to take up this report or who already knows this extraordinary artist, will surely have better means to evaluate this undoubtedly precious album both technically and musically. I content myself with describing the emotions and hope I've done so in the best possible way.