Valerie June: Owls, Omens and Oracles review – a soul-recharging exercise in radical positivity
While current global events would seem more likely to inspire dark or depressed music, the Tennessee-based, Grammy-nominated, Bob Dylan-favoured Americana singer-songwriter Valerie June is pushing back against bleakness and pessimism. She describes her sixth album as 'a radical statement to break scepticism, surveillance and doomscrolling' with the aim that the listener will 'celebrate your aliveness. Connect, weep, change …'
Beatific opener Joy, Joy! uses the struggles of a planted seed to find light as a metaphor for how no matter what the situation, 'you'll find that joy, joy in your soul.' Nature references also drive Endless Tree, in which her anguish at 'watching the news every night' is tempered by the knowledge that it only takes a single ember to 'light up the dark'.
Producer M Ward marshals a cast including longtime June collaborator Norah Jones and the Blind Boys of Alabama, and instrumentation ranges from June's piano to a honk of New Orleans brass. With June's inimitable vocals at their most pure, freeform and childlike, the songs draw on folk, blues, gospel, gentle psychedelia and soul. Trust the Path has the disarming quality of Fleetwood Mac's Landslide and the keyboard-driven All I Really Wanna Do celebrates euphoria. The mood is generally uplifting, but when the sublime I Am In Love finds her in a more quizzical mood – 'What does it mean? Is it just words?' – she stretches every vowel to dazzling effect.
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