Lisa Marini is mixed-race Londoner with a deep, dark, silkily prowl of a voice that conjures an intoxicating cocktail of Nina Simone, Eartha Kitt and Amy Winehouse. Born in Tribes is her debut album and the first full studio recordings since her 2014 EP, From the Bedroom Den. Opening with the spooked mood and desert-dry resonator guitar of ‘Piece By Peace’ which deals with breaking yourself down and reassembling, a rebirth from destruction (the mud I bathe in hides/A cleansing done inside), a theme that clearly draws on her background, growing up with a mentally-unstable mother, running away from home aged 12, living with addicts and her teenage years marked by shoplifting and getting wasted before turning her life around by returning to school…
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…and taking her GCSEs and going on to study at the London College of Printing. Music offered a means of escape, expiation and catharsis, and that comes through here.
The title track follows, a rhythmic tempo-shifting gathering flurry of jazz and blues-textured progressive folk veined with Eastern influences, featuring unrecognisable pedal steel, the vocals at times almost shaman-like as she sings Lets find our own titles about forging an identity of your own and not being chained to legacy and heritage.
A similar train of thought (Here to fulfil our purpose/Not to bow down and kneel Not to blindly chase a wheel) informs Crooked Circle, a slower burn with acoustic flames flickering ghostly as the muted percussion and Sam Browns cello weave through the rhythmic pulse before double bass and intimate percussion adds weight to the narcotic smoky blues ambience of Ive Been A Thief, a song of both confession (Ive lived too fast/I drugged myself to ease a past/That followed me around for years) and reaffirmation (Now I use that fuel to paint a path To colour in the greys and darks And make use of these devil hands), about making your own destiny Because we can sink or sail our ships /Carve the fate in the stones we kick/Or raise a glass to tears of tails You can hear the exultancy in the lines bless the sun/And bless the moon/And bless the simple things we do/ I dont need no whistle bellsI aint got nothing left to prove, the refusal to be held prisoner of past as she declares I wont go digging where the pain incarcerates me.
The liberation of the country (mystic clouds/How you enchant me) versus the tug of the city (I keep running back/Back to you London) provides the thematic dynamic of the acoustic and quite possibly metaphorical Bound By The Street which, again featuring double bass, keeps the jazz cellar mood simmering. While also lyrically documenting restlessness (Born/With a hunger that hoards/And taunts and taunts and taunts) and seeking to escape the scars of the past (Pillar to post/We search to soothe these sores), lines about running for no cause and These streets were made to keep us from being still directly contrast with More?s languid trance-like air of shimmering notes, cello and strung-out minimal percussion.
Returning to folksier colours with just simply picked guitar, occasional lone piano note and confessional vocals, Kite may seem to be about giving in (Ive just lost the knack/To be bold) but when she sings I have no need/To hide this temporary/Forgotten soul/So, I give you way Ive untied and tamed/The waves and peaks/For what else is there/But to wash the walls That cornered meSense me/Please it becomes clear its about surrender in a very different sense.
Then, its back to the blues and more pedal steel with the mantra-like melodic structure of Second Hand News with its enigmatic images and symbolism (Currants in a fruitcake/I give a slice then Im swallowed whole) with its air of disorientation in the white noise of media static (Swayed till we choose/So far right, so far left, Im wilting) before the otherworldly haze of the equally cryptic Rag And Bone (the curious child in me bites/Takes every pearl polished sightMy taste buds are sore/Im rag and bone bored) swirls around your ears, eventually melting into the ether.
The penultimate verbally rhythmic (Words will take/A winding rake/From our deeds) Deeds Not Words is a simple fingerpicked acoustic guitar number, shaded with pulsing cello and a slight Latin hint to the rhythm, the album-closing on the slowly unfolding five-minute Song From The Moon with its washing waves effects intro/outro and shuffling percussion solo bridge as she juggles strength (My mother wasnt around/So, I cant say if Ill turn out well/But Ive got bones that are tough/And Ill learn how to speak up and play fair) and depression-fed vulnerability (The darkness fuels itself/And no, I dont feel well/Will you hold my hand out of here?) in the lunar grip of the ebb and flow of emotional tides. An auspicious debut, Marini has the potential to be one of the most significant voices of the next decade and beyond.
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Lisa Marini – Born in Tribes (2020)
