LINDSAY STRAW
My Mind From Love Being Free
Self Release

www.lindsaystraw.com
 

Originally from Montana, singer and instrumentalist Lindsay Straw relocated to Boston in her late teens to study film scoring at the famed Berklee College of Music. Boston’s thriving Celtic scene quickly grabbed her attention, however, and she’s spent the past decade establishing herself as a young and versatile performer (and student) of traditional songs and music from the British Isles. While she’s recorded previously with her band The Ivy Leaf, My Mind From Love Being Free, self-released in May of this year, represents her first formal solo release.

She takes the idea of a solo project seriously; all songs feature Straw by herself, spotlighting her vocal and instrumental skills. She’s clearly a student of the British folk guitar school, with her dynamic fingerpicking taking notes from Jansch, Renbourn, Carthy and others without imitating any one of them. Her bouzouki playing is also both familiar and fresh, sparser than the guitar work as could be expected but never lacking in countermelodic support for her vocals. And the vocals, including two unaccompanied tracks, are the star here, strong but easily able to convey tenderness and emotion, as befits an album of songs about the many faces of love.

The songs Straw’s picked, along with her arrangements, are also an asset. Seven of the album’s ten songs come directly from recordings by unaccompanied singers, with four from Scots singer Jeannie Robertson and her daughter Lizzie Higgins, and another three from sean nos singer Rita Gallagher. As a result, all of her accompaniment parts were built from scratch, and with great effect. She’s adapted the less well traveled of these so fluently and comfortably to her strengths that you’d be forgiven for trying to guess whose arrangements she might have pilfered, and even those that have become more widely known (including two from the Pentangle catalog) bear an individual stamp.

It’s difficult to pick standout tracks, as it’s an album of highlights. “Lovely Molly” is a melancholic beauty; “Yarrow” has perhaps the most subtly complex guitar arrangement; and “Lurgy Stream,” the lyrics of which provides the album title, has driving, ringing bozouki accompaniment that should get the blood pumping. This is highly recommended for anyone who appreciates great ballads in a sparse and original setting.

— Dan Greenwood