Laura Barrett: "Bluebird"

I want to call Laura Barrett’s kalimba playing unique. I want to, but I haven’t heard any other kalimba players—shit, I haven’t even heard of any other kalimba players—so how would I know? What I do know is this: it doesn’t sound world-musicy at all. It sounds like how bats hear the world, or like Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) played on a music box. It sounds amazing, and as such her arrangements can’t can’t help but stand out as the most fascinating aspect of her music. I’m pursued by questions: how can anyone can move their thumbs this fast while singing? Why is this lovely and not irritating? Why is this—and not something synthesized—the sound of futuristic paranoia?

“Bluebird” opens with a rusty piano playing the kalimba pattern. This transposition from one instrument to another makes the music uncanny, like it has returned from the dead. Placing this strange copy before the original—and having the piano fade in—continues the eerie vibe. At the piano’s last note, the kalimba enters without a pause, maintaining the steady 6/8 drive. Barrett grounds things in the centre, and the sound is filled out with Paul Aucoin’s vibraphone (marimba?) playing tenor accompaniment in the right channel and some tinkling thing (who but a pro could identify these tittles?) in the right channel. Barrett has these instruments repeat twelve notes (with subtle changes) for a full minute to set the scene before her breathy alto enters: “I hear the bluebird’s the new bird to blame.” Organic instruments and two references to nature aren’t enough to erase the suggestion of conspiracy that appears even in the first line: what is the bird to be blamed for? Who are those that have decided, and why does their decision (reported via rumor) seem so sinister? In the next line Barrett worries about defaming the accused.

All the while the kalimba, mallet somethingerother, and tinkling thing writhe and churn, turning over their very few notes in furious repetition. Woodwinds and strings eventually make an appearance, and at exactly 2:59 all is silent but for the lone kalimba. The rhythmic accents Barrett places on certain notes make melodies float to the surface of the sixteenth note swirl. Barrett begins introducing variations to her arpeggio without letting the rhythm, or the listener, take a breath. Soon a string section fades in, alternating two bars of a warm but dissonant chord with two bars rest until the end; it’s both comforting and disconcerting, a fitting irresolution to a song filled with such suspicious wondering.