Return of the acoustic troubadour
There seems to be a bit of a revival for the traditional American folk troubadour in recent years. Anaïs Mitchell is the latest in a long line of young acoustic performers taking their cue from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and so on. Which is no mean task to take on, especially when there’s so much other music around for people to listen to, which doesn’t come with any messages on society’s ills to make you feel uncomfortable. But that’s the beauty of Anaïs Mitchell’s music: it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable with its weighty topics. In fact, it’s completely the opposite.
Mitchell’s music is unashamedly girly and sweet, mainly because her voice is high pitched (watch out for the start of ‘Before The Eyes of Storytelling Girls’, it’s liable to make you jump if you’ve never heard her voice before. Or maybe it’s just me?). Not that Mitchell’s voice takes away from the poignancy of the music in the slightest. In fact, it’s complemented by a simple acoustic guitar, making the whole album feel very intimate, like you’re listening in a dark bar.
But yes, as with the legendary songwriters before her, Mitchell’s lyrics are based around very ambitious topics. ‘1984’ should strike a particular note in this day and age, when it talks about databases full of test scores… But it’s not frightening or aggressive in any way, more of a sweet melancholy from observing the way the world’s progressing. Fortunately, ‘Hymns for the Exiled’ doesn’t allow itself to become swamped with the world’s woes, as the heavier topics are balanced neatly with snapshots of ordinary life. Lots of references to people, especially family, that Mitchell describes in minute detail really draw in the listener into the story she’s telling within the lyrics. It’s an album that manages to be both very personal and impersonal at the same time. From government conspiracy to gentler songs about wearing her grandmother’s old dress, there’s really nothing too big or too small to be covered here.
So will you like it? Unless you’re really, really fed up with folk singer-songwriters, yes. There’s absolutely nothing offensive here, the lyrics are beautifully constructed and flow so naturally it’s like they were born fully-formed. If I were to draw a comparison to anyone, it would probably be Thea Gilmore; the lyrics are so insightful and timeless. Of course, there will be those who find the more homely songs rather too twee, but the album really would suffer without them.
Mitchell has already won the very prestigious New Folk Award, and this album deserves to go on to even greater accolades both in Britain and America.