When Trouble Held Me In Its Cruel Smile

Mary Timony “Looking For the Sun”

I hear a lot of English folk psychedelia in the songs on Mary Timony’s new record Untame the Tiger and I think it suits her very well, especially after an extended spell of records with Ex Hex which went for a more blunt new wave minimalism. “Looking For the Sun” is a different sort of minimalism, I suppose, but the scope suggested by her guitar feels much grander than that. She makes the verses feel like an expanse of barren desert, which only makes the brighter chords on the chorus sound more like a burst of sunlight through parting clouds. Like a few other tracks on the record, the lyrics describe a rather bleak state of mind in direct but not unpoetic language. She imagines misery as a bad friend, and misfortune only exacerbating a fear of everyone else. But despite all that the song mostly sounds like an expression of optimism, or at least faith in the light at the end of every tunnel.

Buy it from Bandcamp.