Ray Lamontagne

Clara Junken: Out to See

Sam

A turbulent See

Don’t take Clara Junken lying down

That Marion Grace record, Lying Down Looking Up from 2010, was pretty good, really. A smart roots-rock that was well put together and catchy in places. Not much ever came of it, though. No more than a handful of shows, certainly, and no follow-up from the four-piece.

Now, though, here returns Clara Junken, integral backing vocalist and guitarist in support of Marion Grace frontman Ralph Graceffa, stepping out on her own with a solo record four years later. With her, too, is Aaron Cloutier, drummer and percussionist and co-producer of the new Out to See, a full-length Junken releases this week.

She’s picked up a lot of friends over the last few years. Even long-time vet Flash Allen, who’s been around just about every local block, to play the Hammond organ. He’s pretty vital. His organ is table-setting for “Flyte Point,” the best track here. In the open and finish, there are shades of Carole King and Joni Mitchell, an easy and swaying Sunday afternoon of a song, with a touch of R&B and a wonderful vocal performance.

Like much of this record, though, things aren’t always what they initially seem. About two minutes in, things get all kinds of Four Way Street, with classic ‘60s electric guitar and flashes of psychedelia. Ultimately, it’s fatalistic: “There ain’t no more/ Sink or swim … There’s no one left to ask.”

It’s just a taste of the fairly prog song construction you’ll often find here. Though the arrangements feel like your standard folk and singer-songwriter fare, there’s always another songwriting change-up around the corner, a tempo switch or genre clash. “Brown Eyed Man” is only three minutes or so, but there’s a real contrast between the opening husky vocals over a halting and gravelly electric guitar and the shuffling roots rocker it finishes as, with reminders of Megan Jo Wilson and Ray LaMontagne. “Show Me Your Smile” is this quiet kind of Supertramp (“Give a Little Bit”) — “You’ve been a runaway for so long/ Don’t know how to make you strong” — that changes up completely at the half-way point, with an organ drone that introduces something like a metal band playing Blind Faith’s instruments.

Truthfully, at times it seems almost arbitrary where the song’s going next. There are many of the familiar signs of verse-chorus-verse songwriting, though, so it can be particularly disorienting.

“Middle of May” opens with an a capella lilt, setting you up for something off the Ghost of Paul Revere’s next record. Maybe she dips into a Hessian-style dramatic lilt for a few verses: “And the world keeps turning, turning ‘round the sun/ and I knew then like I know now/ I could be the only one, to let you down.” Expectations are set.

But it goes major after the guitar build, with a riff like “Eye of the Tiger” (just without the crest), apologizes with an “I’m so, so sorry,” and then ramps into a wicka-wicka blaxpoitation jam with horns. Listen for Dave Noyes. He arranged the section and played trombone. There’s at least one signature Rustic Overtones horn line in there.

Finally, we’re back to the beginning, with a scene-setting: “It iced over in the middle of May/ When I left you, standing there.”

Points for the creativity, but it can be hard to find something to hold onto. “Selfish Soul” is maybe the most traditional construction, but the phrases in the chorus change each go-round and the contrast with the verse is a halting pull-back, like Wilco’s “Shake It Off.” Or being the tail-end of a whiplash.

Still, you may keep coming back for Junken’s vocals. She has big range, from a low-end like Kathleen Edwards, capable with bluesy numbers like “You Are the Sun,” to the arcing high note on “misery” in the interestingly constructed title track, which plays on gospel tropes. She can play the guitar, too, with plenty of nice Delta blues fingerstyle on “Sun” and a warm acoustic sound on “See.”

Ultimately, it’s not a big singalong piece, but it’s not too far outside the WCLZ fare for which this town has shown some particular penchant. In front of a full band, especially, Junken ought to be a good way to enjoy the evening.

 Photo Credit: Dylan Verner

Gunther Brown: Good Nights for Daydreams

Sam

Life’s lessons

One man’s Daydreams are another’s nightmares

What is it about a sad song? The catharsis of a good lament can be so sweet, built doubly on empathy and a sense that, well, maybe things aren’t as bad as all that.

With Gunther Brown’s debut full-length, frontman Pete Dubuc and crew have created the most sorrowful local record since Ray Lamontagne’s Till the Sun Turned Black. Like that album, Good Nights for Daydreams is full to the brim with regret, promises that are likely never to come to pass, and good, old-fashioned wallowing.

From the opening “No Use Livin’,” the sunshine can be hard to find, other than some splashes of cowbell from drummer Derek Mills. What’s more sad-sack than this? “This is the night I give up my life/ When you dig my grave/ Don’t pray my soul to save/ Just cover me with earth and go.” Hallee and Kati Pottle supply high-low backing vocals to put an even finer point on it, a sharp complement to Dubuc’s quiet rasp.

The following “Time and Again” takes the pace down and layers on the tears in your beer while recalling Wes Hartley’s excellent “Acreless.” As elsewhere, the heartache comes from separation: “Lay your head on the table/ Cuz this is goodbye.” Chris Plumstead’s electric-guitar break in the bridge is more lighthearted than you’d expect, though, and doesn’t quite match Dubuc’s emotion.

Elsewhere, Plumstead flashes some Allmans/Dickie Betts influence, as on the brief solo with 30 seconds to go in “The Next Time,” an up-tempo alt-country tune. The early-song fills are where Plumstead shines, setting up what ought to be great live, where “you ain’t gonna get away” is more of a promise than a threat and there is real urgency.

Except that gal seems to keep finding a way to be somewhere else, even if on “Follow You Anywhere” Dubuc makes the same promise: “I will not let you go.” This time the urgency is communicated via increasing tension. It’s moody, with lots of high hat, and boozy like an after-hours song played to a few stragglers and the bartenders counting out the drawer. Just try to enjoy the moment: “We’ve no past, no future that will last/ There’s just now.”

It’s that resignation that fuels “Forever,” an upbeat strum that’s angry and resentful, calling to mind an ex crashing a wedding he wishes was his. Like the Old 97s or the Weakerthans, Gunther Brown can lay on the biting spite pretty thick. “People keep coming around and telling me,” Dubuc sings, in a way that makes it clear he wishes they wouldn’t, “things they think I oughta hear.” And when he talks about looking back 13 years, it’s clear he’s old enough where 13 years just isn’t that long anymore.

Then the bridge goes into half-time for a bluesy Plumstead solo. It’s a touch of prog you find again in the closing tune, the six-minute “Up To Me,” built on contrasting rhythms from Mills: quick with the sticks, plodding with his feet. Here, we get to the heart of the matter: “You don’t love me anymore.” Again, it feels more like a promise than an accusation.

The overall feeling here isn’t sad, or miserable, but accepting. Resigned. There is an embracing of the pure emotion, odes to that cliche that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. There is determination, too, and ambition. Songs like “Christ of the American Road,” “Headlights and Highways,” and “Bobby Orr” (the last reminiscent of early REM in its mix of sing-song and deadpan delivery) speak of a mission. Our protagonist is on the way back to redemption. There is hope and there are big dreams.

If you set your sights on “skating circles around Bobby Orr,” coming up short, simply finding a person to live with, doesn’t seem so hard now does it? Despite all those “broken things on the side of the road” you leave behind along the way.