Sarah Donner - Black Hole Heart (2016)

OFFICIAL: https://www.sarahdonner.com
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MUSIC VIDEO: (PHOENIX)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13Jwyb-AnA

Written by Frank McClure, posted by blog admin

One of the most beautiful aspects of Sarah Donner’s album Black Hole Heart is how fresh these familiar acoustic soundscapes sound in her hands. Donner has an unique talent for making the textures and tones of traditional folk music come alive with an almost pop-song like energy and has a penchant for structuring her folk-influenced tunes in a manner that mimics the orchestrations common in pop songs. It makes many of the tracks on Black Hole Heart stand out in a crowded musical style where it’s often a struggle to tell the difference between various musicians. Donner also possesses a set of pipes that rate among the most expressive instruments either on the indie or mainstream scene today – she comes off, truly, as a singer capable of handling any material. She wisely writes songs, however, that play to her strengths and the dozen songs on Black Hole Heart are fully realized musical pieces with considerable melodic and vocal strengths.   

The best possible opening for the album is “Phoenix” and Donner, thankfully, concurs. The melodicism of the vocal and arrangement alike have a gentle, but lively, glitter that work perfectly together and Donner gives one of her best singing performances while still lacking some of the overt vocal pyrotechnics we hear on later tracks. Piano and acoustic guitar work extremely well together on the superbly constructed “Black Hole Heart” and the personal nature of the lyric nevertheless touches on emotions we can all relate to and wisely avoids too many specific details that might isolate it from our experience. The folk song influences running through “Tamsen Donner 1847” somewhat obscure the five star writing job that forms the heart of the song. Donner’s done a great job conjuring the atmosphere of a doomed voyage in her lyrics and the crystalline musical backing is quite appropriate for the work. The rustic, bluegrass tinged qualities of “Athena” means the song is essentially cut from the same cloth as the aforementioned “Tamsen Donner 1847”, but the jaunty air of the musical arrangement couldn’t contrast any sharper with the earlier song’s mood.

Mike Batchlor’s organ work and fine trumpet playing from Phillip Fillion distinguish “The Flood” musically from the surrounding songs. Donner’s vocal excellence is just as impactful with the added instrumentation and she clearly draws a certain degree of inspiration from the near-shuffle guitar and unusual instrumentation. Some humor creeps in near the end of “The Longest Road”, but this is otherwise another affecting, personally-slanted tune that Donner gives a zesty, impassioned reading of. “Sinking Ship” is reminiscent of the earlier “Tamsen Donner 1847” in a few ways, but it’s most notable another character driven piece where Donner embodies the voice for a narrator on the cusp of losing their life. Despite the weighty scenario, the music maintains a tasteful air rife with haunting atmospherics. Black Hole Heart solidifies Donner’s standing as one of the best singer/songwriters working on the indie scene today.

Kittens Slay Dragons - Big Big Heart (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://kittensslaydragons.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/kittensslaydragons/

NEW MUSIC VIDEO -
Love is Surgery:  https://youtu.be/uLUjVFRQePk

STREAM: https://kittensslaydragons.bandcamp.com

Songwriter and singer Sarah Donner is a brilliant example of how the most meaningful artists illustrate significance in both their lives and work. This animal rescue and mental health advocate is able to use her art in a such a way that listeners feel quite willing to engage the empathy in such abundance throughout her songwriting, but they likewise will never feel like Donner is attempting to browbeat them into a particular point of view. Dogma is death to popular song and Donner resolutely avoids that at every turn. Kittens Slay Dragons is a remarkably apt title for this deceptively cathartic release – it isn’t a cry of anguish that she unleashes here, however, but rather a full throated invocation of her innermost self in a recognizable musical form. Big Big Heart, the debut release for Kittens Slay Dragons, features a three piece configuration who make a tremendous impression with electronica in a day and age where the genre seems likely to be providing diminishing returns.

The touch of synthesizers is readily apparent and Donner’s vocal on the opener, “Gatekeeper”, is exuberant and quite inspired. This is certainly electronic pop, but it undercuts the style’s reputation as a vacuous musical form. Instead, this pops and crackles with immense intelligence and literacy that few acts or tracks falling within this type of music can possibly equal. The album’s second song “Castiel” continues the same spirit with even a little more discernible bounce than before. The use of electronic instruments, however, never means that these come off as cold compositions – a common knock on the style. Instead, Donner and her collaborators use electronic instruments in such a way they radiate warmth and have a pleasing live feel. The same intelligence guiding these previous songs hits another level entirely on the track “Smile Pretty” – despite the artsy veneer, there’s a hard-eyed clarity surrounding this song that sets it apart from the other material. Much of this, however, can be lain at the feet of Donner’s impassioned vocal.

The title song makes one of the album’s more emphatic musical and lyrical statements without ever straining too greatly for effect. The electronic textures, however, are a little more challenging than before without ever losing sight of the song’s melodic potential. It’s one of the album’s longest songs, at this point, and has what you expect from a title cut – a sense of the bigger picture, a thesis of sorts for what precedes and follows it. The insistent pulse underpinning “Queer and Square” makes for one of the album’s most bracing musical moments and Donner’s wide-eyed bray is impossible to ignore. The same electronic pop sheen that makes much of Big Big Heart glow continues in its closer “Head Down, Heart Up” but it avoids the cheese factor that weighs down many similar efforts. Instead, it feels and sounds like a strong closer for an album with irrepressible spirit and immense humanity. Kittens Slay Dragons doesn’t come off, at any point, sounds like a one off or vanity project. Instead, this has all the heft and entertainment value of an abiding artistic statement and will garner a lot of justified positive attention.

Grade: A

Written by Charles Hatton