The release, or rather lack of release, of Shannon Stephens self-titled debut album in 1999, shows how little music matters sometimes.
The former singer with Sufjan Stevens long defunct folk rock band Marzuki recorded the album more than a decade ago but declined to put it out. This was no artistic fit of pique though, just life getting in the way. She quite simply had better things to do than trawl around TV and radio studios to promote the darn thing.
According to her recent publicity blurb, she realised “that all this music stuff was a lot of work”. Since then she got married, had a daughter “and did lots of hippy stuff like growing potatoes.”
The music took hold of her again in 2008 after Bonnie Prince Billy covered ‘I’ll Be Glad’ one of the tracks from her never properly released debut.
She released her second, or is that first, album, The Breadwinner shortly after the Bonnie Prince Billy tribute and now after a decade of collecting dust in her garage her label Asthmatic Kitty has decided to finally give her debut the release it always deserved.
In many respects those buying the album will be treated to something of a lost classic. Her voice is beautiful and heartwarming, although not powerful or distinctive in a Joni Mitchell or Leslie Feist way. Perhaps the nearest comparison is with Suzanne Vega or Beth Orton in the subtlety in which emotion is conveyed.
But unlike Vega, who during her 80s heyday suffered from over production and dated keyboard and guitar sounds, the production here matches Stephens’s voice. Produced by Stephens, along with Sufjan Stevens and Matthew Heseltine (also ex Marzuki), it is largely acoustic guitar strumming and her voice. But when necessary, for a change of pace or feeling, cellos, banjos, even drums are occasionally added.
On ‘I’ll Be Glad’ and ‘Panic’ the fuller sound of added instruments works particularly well and it is no wonder that Bonnie Prince Billy adopted the former as a song to cover. It is a very Bonnie Prince Billy song.
The cello on opener ‘So Gentle Your Arms’ add real depth to the track and mirrors the sad tone in her voice. Nick Drake set the bar on such a track with ‘Cello Song,’ but this comes pretty close. ‘Panic’ with banjo and slide guitar is probably the standout track on a remarkably consistent album that sounds as fresh as it does today as it did 11 years ago.
Given the lack of an original release it is unsurprising just how few people have discovered Stephens. But listening to this makes you wonder just how long that will continue. This re-release will undoubtedly bring her to a wider audience, if this time round she is prepared to put the work in or at least find a suitable balance between home life and work.
This is a fine album, but at the end of the day it is just a disc in a box that perhaps quite rightly comes second to being able to see the smile on her child’s face each day or doing hippy things in her garden.
8.5/10
by Joe Lepper, July 2010
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