Teni Rane - Goldenrod (self-released)

Via such succulent releases as Meet Me In Stockholm and now with her new album Goldenrod Teni Rane is building a name for herself for a very particular and unique type of music. In purely sonic terms, you might refer to it as indie-folk, although that only acts as the vaguest starting point for music which draws around itself everything from rootsy grooves and classical moves, world influences and nostalgic echoes of the past.

But it is the literary or descriptive qualities of her music that are the natural charm here, and the songs found on Goldenrod are nothing if not charming in the extreme. The best music makes you think; it also makes you feel, but Teni Rane’s music can also make you remember. Her descriptions of the natural world, the family home, and life’s learning curve are so vivid that, even though the songs are born of a very personal perspective and experience, they feel like they also come from some sort of shared memory.

The title track, for example, evokes images of bees hovering over the meadows or of the vibrant streams tumbling down the mountainsides of East Tennessee over a dance of resonant cello and chiming guitars. “Caramel” describes the autumnal colours of swirls of fallen leaves as a Spanish guitar and seductive string washes mourn the loss of summer, and in “Cinnamon,” you can almost see the kitchen floor reflecting the morning light, you can smell the warm of coffee, hear the laughter, and feel the inevitability of change that is described in the song.

These are less songs in the standard sense and more vignettes, scenes, and scenarios taken from life, but ones that we all seem to have had at least a walk-on part in, if not a staring role. If musically, Goldenrod is very much the sound of an artist moving forward, lyrically, it often does so by remembering the past.

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