CD review: Snowblink
By Casey Gillis on Oct. 22, 2008
By Blair Amberly
It is rare to see lyrics printed to most “folk” songs since, one, they are usually easily deciphered with a few listens and, two, folk lyrics are not as impressive in print; they tend to lose their robust nature without the music. However, Snowblink’s lyrics stand alone silently as timeless, beautiful poetry. Then voice them with the sweet croons of songwriter Daniela Geshundheit and place them over sparse, delicate instrumentation, and these poems transform into soul inspiring songs.
Snowblink is the primary music project of the poet/artist, who has assembled a variety of men from San Francisco to back her up with light percussion, contrabass, glockenspiels, violins, vocals and whistles. Geshundheit gently handles her guitar, which is present in all songs, while undeniably impressing with the floating nature of her vocals. Her voice is confident, yet capricious, and her lyrics are built from the beauty of the earth. Stylistically, she could be compared to Joanna Newsome while vocally, she is a more intimate presentation of Feist.
“Long Live” is a salute to the often under-recognized beauty of existence crafted from the dynamic scope of the natural world. Geshundheit distributes poetic visions: the escaped ambergris of oneself, the enormous length of grace, the inner whirling eddies, the nests of folded fingers and the way love can “some days leave the taste of an orchard.”
It is the world’s tiny wonders that get credit in “The Tired Bees.” She sings, “One little word as soft as the breast of a hummingbird. One little song sung soft as a moth moving towards a light left on. One little tremor as tender as a fronts thawing into pond.”
“Green to Gone” uses the plant metaphor to approach relationships, “sometimes the leaves succulently; sometimes the leaves poisoning. Sometimes they go from green to gone.”
Snowblink is a fitting name for the delicacy of these earth-loving songs. “Long Live” is the message Geshundheit leaves for the co-existence of humans with this luscious world. The entirety of “Go Deep” sums up Geshundheit’s perspective:
“Not everything you water will grow fast enough for you to love it. It’s like Frankie told me ‘It can take three-and-a-half years of falling to hit ocean floor from open sea.’ Still! Be like bees dressed entirely in yellow pelts of pollen; if you’re gonna go in, then go in deep!”
Amberly operates Fifth Street’s Speakertree Records
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