Charlotte Martin overwhelms, envelopes, and pulsates your soul even while seeming like the prophet-conscience in the corner that you pass by only to see her reappear in the next doorway. She works her way into your spirit by piano and that voice, yet also stands staring at you, pointing at you. This was true with On Your Shore, but I found the effect even stronger on Stromata.
Martin wields her tools to craft this cinematic-like effect that shows up on your imagination’s silver screen. She has mastered pop craft, so that the songs are at once familiar. Hence, the pulsating rhythm that’s injected into you immediately. To this, she adds depth with piano runs, much like Duncan Sheik.
However, what really lets her move from your soul to be a street corner observer and then back again are her voice and samples. Listen to the vocal acrobatics on “Cut the Cord,” and Martin is entwined with you like a lover but also stands in a window up above the street looking down on you with an outsider’s knowing stare. More than Tori Amos, Kelly Snyder, or other piano mavens, Martin’s voice encourages you to fall in love even as she’s spooking you with her telling maturity.
The piano and voice sounds are more open than dense, as if she’s just alone on a dark stage with a baby grand and a keyboard. That’s the wrong image, though, because even if you can’t see them, the stage is filled with blips, bips, acoustic waves, flashing LEDs, and laser lights weaving a theremin-like pattern. The open world of these songs are populated by synths, drum programming, samples, and reverb—plenty of reverb. “Civilized” bangs out from Martin’s piano line, but its highway-speeds-on-downtown-city-streets pace comes from the layers upon layers of electronics. Even Joey Waronker’s drums (which feed off of Martin’s piano) are heightened in effect by the sample static.
For words which also have this inside/outside effect, turn to the enchanting “Pills.” While the Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off” certainly reframed how one imagines the thoughts of someone lining up pills for suicide, Martin’s song hits anyone who has ever swallowed a pill. We expect much from our medicine-doctors-in-capsule-form, and Martin’s list—interrupted by orchestral, tympani choruses—makes us wonder if we’re putting a little too much trust in pharmaceuticals. If God were a pill, we’d swallow Him.
Stromata closes with “Redeemed,” a bombastic answer to all of the melancholy, pain, and wistful stares, as Martin draws us out of such slavery by reminding us of who we are—redeemed people. It’s a most spiritual moment recognized from the knee-deep mud of the world’s muck.
Where is the hand for me to reach?
Where is the moral I’ll never teach myself?
In all the black, in all the grief, I am redeemed…
For a sermon I wrote based on Charlotte Martin’s song, “Something Like a Hero” (On Your Shore), please click here.
Thanks to Charlotte Martin and Dinosaur Fight Records for the review CD.
