Shannon Lay & Anna St. Louis: Music To Stop You In Your Tracks

It did me. Stopped me dead in my tracks. Had me thinking of certain artists and albums from the past that did the same thing— Daisy House, Angharad Drake, Amy van Keeken, and a handful of others. Music that had that certain something that you don’t know what it is but is definitely there kind of thing. The something you can never describe when talking about it but can be heard every time you play it. Benchmark albums. Joni Mitchell’s Blue. Captain Beyond’s first. Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill. Dave Mason’s Alone Together. Cargoe’s first album and their stablemates Big Star’s #1 Record. I date myself by those choices but like the best comedians say, somebody has to.

You see, a good friend of mine— a very good friend, in fact— sent me names of three musicians a couple of weeks ago with a note saying I needed to hear their music— Meg Baird, Anna St, Louis, and Shannon Lay. I had heard of Baird before, she having collaborated and played with numerous artists I have come across (I have been duly impressed with her work). Lay and St. Louis were new to me, though, and when I searched, I found a few links but little else. For Anna St. Louis, especially. Sites which offered news of her new cassette First Songs (that’s right— cassette, for evidently that is the only format used for the initial release). Cassettes have never been a format I favored, but one listen to this and I began rethinking my stance:

https://soundcloud.com/woodsist/anna-st-louis-fire-mare-records

My friend had the album, he said and I, in my enthusiasm, assumed it was available in all formats. My first post was on the Book of Face screaming hurrah for another vinyl treasure, but an email correction and a quick look at the Woodsist site (the album has been released on Mare Records, an imprint of Woodsist) brought me back to Earth. Cassette only. Huh. But listening, I know that will not last. Music as good as this will surely bust out of its own accord, hopefully on all formats. I call it karma.

That karma can be applied to Shannon Lay as well, and it was actually Lay’s album (Living Water) he had on vinyl and not St. Louis’s. Sometimes my excitement is a detriment.

I hesitate to call either St. Louis or Lay folkies but folk is part of their magic. Acoustic guitar, plucked and very occasionally strummed, is the bedrock for a beautiful voice couched in melody and mist and helped along by various instruments where needed to accentuate mood. For instance:

https://soundcloud.com/shannonlay/the-moons-detriment

If I could lay my hands on why this music has that something extra, I would be a rich man. Record labels have been searching for the formula since before I was born. Then again, perhaps it is the mere lack of formula which makes it so magical. Maybe the seeming lack of effort, pure melody for voice, which makes the difference. All I know is I hear it and, more than that, feel it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gML35b8S3v4

Another cool side to this is how I came to hear of them. True, Sam Berger sent me a message, but Sam heard about them through a radio station and wrote, Finders fee must go to DJ extraordinaire Jeff Conklin. I got turned on to all of the above artists (and many more) on his great WFMU show The Avant Ghetto. A must listen.

A listen. One listen and the music comes alive. I listen to Lay and St. Louis and automatically think organic. It is fitting that the process is too. Word of mouth. That is how I find music. People bring it to me. It is always a good thing, but never more than when I find music like this. Color me grateful.