Hear It First ~ The Indigo Girls’ new CD, ‘Beauty Queen Sister,’ streaming at FolkAlley.com
Folk Alley
Posted On September 26, 2011
by Elena See- FolkAlley.com
Click to listen to ‘Beauty Queen Sister’ here in its entirety, before the release day on Tuesday, October 4th
Decades into their career, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are still doing what they do best: telling stories.
It’s interesting – most musicians include a few songs on each album that tell a story with well-developed characters and, at times, some kind of overarching moral or lesson learned. But very few musicians can release a 13-song collection of nothing BUT stories. And that’s what the Indigo Girls have done with their 14th studio recording, Beauty Queen Sister.
So that’s one interesting point about the Indigo Girls and their new CD. Here’s another interesting point: Beauty Queen Sister? All different. This is not a breaking up album or a love song album or a protest album. Taking turns in the lead and harmony vocal roles (continuing the trademark Indigo Girls tradition and sound), not to mention songwriting responsibilities, Ray and Saliers make comments and tell stories about war, the environment and love.
There’s also a lot of nostalgia in the new recording – a longing for simpler days and a remembrance of when things were maybe a little less rushed, a little less intense and a little more natural. And not only is that evident in songs like “Feed and Water the Horses” (a lament, really, about losing some of the traditions of the past), it’s also evident in the way the duo recorded this latest album. It was a much faster, much less drawn out and much more organic process and that, according to the Indigo Girls, is how they work best. The process this time around was just magical, according to Amy Ray.
And this time around, the process was helped by some fantastic guest musicians. Brady Blade’s percussion shines through on the opening track, “Share The Moon,” Luke Bulla’s gorgeous violin closes the album on “Yoke” and Lucy Wainwright Roche, Viktor Krauss and the Shadowboxers (an Atlanta-based, all male trio) number among the other guest musicians who help create and shape the trademark Indigo Girls’ sound that you’ll find on Beauty Queen Sister.
