“Lastly,” sings Macie Stewart, on the opening observe of their debut album, “I inform the reality to myself, to you.” The songwriter, singer and composer is much-loved within the jazz, improvisational and indie music scenes of their native Chicago, however Mouth Full Of Glass affords up a deeply intimate, skilfully crafted, different portrait of their inside world.
You’ve in all probability heard Stewart’s work with out understanding it: on strings for artists as various as SZA and Whitney, as a touring multi-instrumentalist with The Climate Station and Claire Rousay or, most certainly, as one half of art-rock duo Finom (till lately, Ohmme) with Sima Cunningham. There are parallels to be drawn between all of these and Stewart’s first music beneath their very own title – however the exact preparations and experimental thrives maybe most intently resemble Stewart and Cunningham’s latest collaboration with Iron & Wine on an EP of songs by the nation musician Lori McKenna.
Though Stewart started recording the songs that may change into Mouth Full Of Glass in 2019, pausing the challenge whereas Finom labored on their second album Fantasize Your Ghost, the majority of the work – unsurprisingly – passed off throughout the pandemic, with their extra collaborative inventive avenues closed off to them. Residing alone after a serious relationship breakup, grappling with lack of construction as a touring musician and coping with household bereavement, Stewart took numerous lengthy walks across the nature protect near their dwelling, giving them time to ponder, course of and be taught from their inside self, their queerness, their relationships and their hopes for the longer term.
The model of truth-telling Stewart in the end lands on is poetic, minimalist and image-rich in flip. The titular reptile on “Garter Snake” – which Stewart remembers crossing paths with incessantly on these Chicago walks – turns into a metaphor for shedding one’s much less fascinating traits and beginning recent, the singer’s confessions to qualities corresponding to wickedness and indecision sung with out guilt or disgrace. “What Will I Do”, maybe the wordiest tune on the album, exquisitely captures the stress and ache on the finish of a long-term relationship each events know is over: “I see you on the street, in open air and in my core/I really feel a rhythm of a tune I knew earlier than”. On the different finish of the size, the ethereal almost-title observe “Mouthful Of Glass” barely options lyrics in any respect: the tune was impressed by a dream that includes the central picture and Stewart attracts out the phrases like their voice was itself an instrument, the strategy that of an impressionist artist to the paintbrush.
However the lyrics are solely a part of the story, with Stewart bringing the complete depth of their expertise as a composer, violinist, pianist and string arranger to the album’s 30-minute runtime. Tonal shifts do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting: “Lastly” begins with a candy, lilting, guitar-picked melody earlier than sweeping the listener up in a lush, romantic string association; “What Will I Do” is elegant chamber music for piano and guitar till a second of brash, digital noise creates a niche into which a sublime string association can circulate.
Stewart recorded and stitched collectively lots of the instrumental elements at dwelling, however a number of notable Chicago musicians add extra thrives: Sen Morimoto’s serpentine saxophone entangles Stewart’s acoustic guitar on “Garter Snake”, and common collaborator VV Lightbody provides a dancing flute half to the deceptively fairly “Defeat”. Cellist Lia Kohl (who has launched two duo albums for violin and cello with Stewart) provides heft to the string preparations of “Lastly” and “Tone Pome”. The title of the final of those alludes to the orchestral ‘tone poems’ impressed by landscapes and nature, and its lyrics and instrumentation seize the altering of the Chicago seasons: the softness of newly fallen snow, the twinkling shoots of life starting anew.
Amongst a piece that’s typically extraordinary, typically spectacular, two tracks particularly stand out. “Golden (For Mark)” is a sombre hymn for somebody who died in childhood however, whereas the imagery is stark (“an image upon her mantle/Noticed her cry a handful of instances questioning who you’d have been”), by preserving the music sparse and leaving house for the tune to breathe, Stewart finally ends up with one thing that lingers gone the three-minute mark. And “Wash It Away”, the closing observe on the unique US model of the album, is a precision-crafted composition, Stewart’s voice virtually hovering above Ayanna Woods’ horn association earlier than the tune’s discordant, extra experimental refrain hits like a reset button. Whether or not the album has scratched Stewart’s solo inventive itch stays to be seen, nevertheless it’s onerous to think about a greater report to lastly put their very own title on.
