4/5
Maggie's Farm.
What's a year for 'Women In Music' without the one with the best album of last year like this calendars Haim? Maggie's back in town, but this is something you may have heard in a past life. Ever since Pharrell took a trip to N.Y.U. and was moved to disbelief and choked back tears on hearing 'Alaska', Maggie has been on the top of a music mountain. You can tell just in how she holds her stage. From her charming shyness on her first 'Tiny Desk Concert' for NPR (Lizzy Goodman's 'Meet Me In The Bathroom' dog earred book that the once aspiring journalist, Maggie interview editing poured over for hours, lost in transcription, Easter Egg resting on the desk amongst other tidbits), to how she 'Fallingwater' floats in her beautiful ballet like the paint strokes from her traditional shawls and wraps (her superhero cape) like the iconic artwork of her first classic album. A set that featured 'Alaska', 'Burning', 'Overnight', 'The Knife' and so many singles and classics as she more than gave a little, leaving the 'Light On'. "Standing in the open light, within' the swelter of the night", like our favourite, 'Say It'. I can't tell you how I couldn't help but fall in love the first time I heard it through my headphones coming into play as Spotify shuffled into this new artist after Leon Bridges latest album for-like him-another who would instantly become one of my favourites like Springsteen, Ben Harper, Norah Jones, or the late, great purple one, formerly of this world, the artist we will always know as Prince. And of course for a local lad from a train ride from Liverpool myself, The Beatles. But in a big week to end a locked down year, quarantined in the studio, trying to make sense or 2020. One that sees Macca conclude his trilogy with 'McCartney III' and Mando complete his second season with Baby Yoda (I'm sorry, but it will always be Baby Yoda) on Disney + for Star Wars' 'The Mandalorian'. Even in this week with spin-off a from the biggest band and movie franchise of all-time. Not to mention the late, great Chadwick Boseman's last dance as executive producer Denzel Washington and Best Actress Viola Davis take to the 'Fences' of August Wilson's stage again for 'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'. It's Maggie reissuing and releasing some B-sides with, 'Notes From The Archive: Recordings 2011-2016' that really hits from the cutting room floor. This is the way. Just when you thought the singer who recently duetted with 'The Punisher' of another album of the year, Phoebe Bridgers on an 'Iris' Goo Goo Dolls cover to rock the vote, hanging out of the car window like Heath Ledger's Joker with the knives out on a Captain America sweater for the stunning, Summer like single, 'Love You For A Long Time' was going to lead to a new album like that tweet she reposted (it will). Maggie 'Echo' takes it back for the 'Better' like the 'Color Songs' that went 'On + On' for the treasure of the 'Now That The Light Is Fading' EP. These are the 'Dog Years'. Count your time in it this Christmas, because this is a gift. Like the balm stuck at home this year of the wooden box, personal letter and field notes gift set some (I wish, but thank you for sharing my review of your first classic album Maggie. You have no idea how much my phone blew up with retweets...thats how big of a star you were in that moment and still are in your legacy) have been already sent for this collection. Take notes of your past life for the record. Because if you've had a bad week (or let's face it year) this one that loves you will sing you to sleep.
Oh, 'James'. Like an old lover or friend, this feels so fondly familiar. "Maybe you're in love or hung up on another/Maybe you found a far prettier lover/Maybe you'll paint her a picture like you did for me/You color your world with that Neverland smile/But it goes dark in pieces every once in a while/And on my birthday I told you, "Dont worry, there'll be other days/Oh James/Oh James", she sings in the 'Blood Ballet' (we need a reissue of this album) of a former Spotify viral chart sensation and easily one of her best songs for the record...or any record. Say it. And how about the actual 'Blood Ballet' itself as this song is counted in and Maggie dances around acoustics singing, "Tell me how you are/And I'll write a song for every feeling I can't name/Like we were dancing in a f###### blood ballet/It was a massacre", for this album title track in raw retrograde? As soon as this 'Archive' opens up like a Prince vault the treasures spill out in 'Celadon & Gold' for the sound of this singer, formerly knowingly like an indie darling, as tracks like the beautiful 'Together' bind. On 'Steady Now' she keeps going like a raconteur. Before giving us 'One More Afternoon' with grunge guitars that sound like Seattle or early Chili Peppers out in California. But it's the banjos of 'Resonant Body' that really have a resonance like a shiver down your spine as this is her signature sound. "Drum on my ribcage" she tells you, "for my disonant tones" as she goes back into hers in all its beauty, "freckles and old scars". And if you thought that was beauty, check out the reflection of pure 'Symmetry', chord-for-chord on the perfect piano. "We don't have to talk/Leave your words in the city with your heavy thoughts" she says as the Steinway is the only way. Depths of darkness that aren't downcast if you leave the light on like the shadows of this albums artwork, because this is the most personal, perfect portrait of an artist who takes us there in a quarantined, 'I Know Alone' world that's been wearing masks for years, as we scroll through our phones.
'Little Joys' can be found here like the gems of these tracks. But to get 'On The Page' of one of Maggie's earliest records is to get to the heart of who this artist really is and what these past recording releases are all about. And in the same time we finally see some 'Early Years (1963-1967)' archives from the Volume 1 of icon Joni Mitchell, this singer who was oft-compared and called an electric version before she made her own name creates her own legend with her own scrap book crate of musical memory. Rogers singing on the backstage steps with tiles as acoustics to her guitar, telling her muse, "So hold me/Sing me to sleep/On the crest of a late breaking wave/And write me/Into your thoughts/I'll be safe with the words on the page" shows us even back then she was writing classic choruses and lines that will last longer in legacy than this streaming moment right now. Pure warmth like 'James' and his "ooh, ooh, ooh" harmonies, or the comfortable sweater in the desert of the singles original artwork. Getting together with Del Water Gap on a 'New Song' the chemistry is set as her beautiful banjos meet his atmospheric acoustic as she sings, "lovely, tearing me down with your cheekbones/They're warm, but they hit me like sharp stones." Showing yet like time-and-time, "still smelling your scent" again that no one can write about the joys of falling in love without a parachute like her as she webs lyrics together in a beautiful vocabulary. It's what we all need right now in a time of love and life were relationships these days are swiping away at trying to find what's right from all we've left behind. "Everybody's waiting for their one and only/And now and always" she adds on 'Anybody' on another amazing song and reason this collection was curated. Because how has this not been on an official record until now? Just like her signature, generational classic 'Kids Like Us' on more banjo sessions than you could shake some bluegrass at. But nothing howls with such cinematic depth or platinum foreshadowing as when she let's the 'Wolves' out, 'waking with the sun" on an 'Light On' road trip into the wild. "Gearing for the road", "running and never coming back", with the warmth of the "Autumn harvest moon" as her company in this 'Echo' and extended play. The journey is complete by 'Satellite', but Maggie Rogers' one is far from as the pianos play on and again like Sam with stirring strings. The old saying goes that "you can't tell where you're going, if you don't know where you came from" and now we know exactly where Maggie is coming from we can look to 2021 with the clarity and clearness of when the rain is gone. Now we can't wait to hear what comes in the future life. Say it. Tell it. Hear it. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'James', 'New Song (Feat. Del Water Gap)', 'Symmetry'.
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