ALBUM REVIEW: Maya de Vitry Brings the Intangible Closer on ‘Violet Light’

You can’t really describe love at first sight to another person, but you know it when you feel it. Maya de Vitry’s new album, Violet Light, will likely make you feel that special pang within the first few bars of its intro track, but that sense of the intangible is also the album’s primary theme. Named after the part of the light spectrum that humans cannot see (though other animals, like butterflies, can), de Vitry explores the forces that create limitations in our understanding of the world — and how that impacts our actions. Where de Vitry’s previous album, 2020’s How to Break a Fall, was a bombastic celebration of resistance, here de Vitry looks to the more intimate moments in our lives where evil — and good — reverberate.

Recorded in a converted basement studio with her significant other, bassist Ethan Jodziewicz, and bolstered by drop-in sessions from de Vitry’s Nashville neighbors and tracks recorded remotely from around the world, Violet Light feels like being immersed in a warm cocoon, even as the songs broach difficult topics. “Not a Trick of the Eye,” from which the album gets its title, wonders what it means when we are all constantly exposed to racialized violence, either first- or second-hand, and how we choose to confront that violence (or not.)

The natural world reverberates throughout the album, forcing us to pay attention — particularly in a time when, for many of us, our existence has been confined to our homes and Zoom calls. “I Don’t Ask the Trees” may ponder the lingering impacts of a toxic relationship, but de Vitry roots (pun intended) this introspection in her approach to the rest of the natural world: Maybe she can’t know why this person harmed her in this way, but she also does not “ask the trees why they need so much time to grow.”

Yet there is hope here: In recounting a potentially lethal hiking mishap, de Vitry veritably roars her appreciation for life and defiance of death on “How Bad I Wanna Live.” With soaring harmonies courtesy of Shelby Means and Joel Timmons (Sally & George), the song takes on extra poignancy in 2022, a reminder that the fear, anger, and disgust one may be feeling right now is also a survival mechanism. “Never on the Map,” while less exuberant, exquisitely recounts the joyfulness of the touring life, and de Vitry’s well-deserved pride in the paths and highways that have brought her to this point.

De Vitry also celebrates the natural world itself, on “Dogs Run On,” her ode to canines that will make you seek out your own four-legged friend for an extra hug and kiss of appreciation. “Watches Out of Diamonds” is a sardonic examination of the capitalist machine that is actively killing our planet, while the album opener “Flowers” imagines a post-apocalyptic world where such daily delights are a thing of fantastic fairy tales. The song’s mystery and palpable grief set the tone for an album that unfolds into an emotionally moving — and gripping — delight.