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Review: Waterfront Week
Name: Violet
Label: Wine & Vinyl Records
Title: We Both Know It's Out There

Williamsburg's Newest Hitmakers!!! Yes, in a better reality than the one we're currently stuck in, Violet would have that appellation stuck on them, and they'd deserve it.

Violet are Meredith Minogue (vocals) and Jim Barry (guitars & the like), with able assistance provided by hometown heroes such as Joe McGinty, Skip Ward and the sublime viola of Deni Bonet. We Both Know... is their first full-length album, and it's a gem. Violet are a band out of time, and while it may (in these times of "niche marketing") work against them from a "commercial" standpoint, from a musical/artistic one we all the richer. Violet recall a time when the craft of songwriting -- personal songwriting, with integrity and depth -- was valued. (When was that? you might wonder. Let's just say "pre-1977," because that's when the record companies began their decline into beancounterland. Not that the pre-'77 era was an anything-goes Wonderland Of Artistic Purity, but the record companies used to be run by music-heads who were also businessmen. Try, if you will, to imagine a major record company in 2001 releasing blatantly UNcommercial albums like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music or the John Cale/Terry Riley masterpiece Church Of Anthrax. But I digress...)

The album that is We Both Know... (as opposed to a bunch of songs thrown together) basks in a warm glow of analog sound, as opposed to the digital sheen that dominates -- it also is blissfully free of the intentionally haphazard "basement" sound that is so prevalent in the indie-rock sphere. Violet are like The Velvet Underground, Sandy Denny-era Fairport Convention, pre-superstardom/divorce-era Fleetwood Mac and mid-70s Neil Young. Note that they don't "sound like" the aforementioned, they ARE like the aforementioned, possessing the same feeling/talent for sustaining moods without become oppressive; using melancholy, modal melodicism honestly; for using elements of the pre-NashVegas country music lexicon (dobro, harmonica, country rhythms) without playing country music (not that playing country is a bad thing, it's just not who they are...at least not yet.)

Meredith sings (I hope she will excuse my familiarity) with a mature, spirited, slightly weary yet unbowed bittersweet quality that is truly memorable, somewhere betwixt Sandy Denny, Beth Orton and Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker. The guitars jangle and smolder, the melodies equally and rapturously rich with melancholia that never slides into whiny self-absorption. "My Blue Son" and "Amber Falling" sound like...ah, try to imagine the ballads from the Banana-cover VU being played by the couch-cover VU, but sung by Mimi Farina (or Beth Orton). We Both Know It's Out There is an album of unfashionably assured, warm songs made by and for adults, though all ages are welcome. To obtain: their gigs, or violetsong.com.

-- Mark Keresman

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