Molly Maher, with producer Erik Koskinen, has put together a recording of tunes, new and old, that have a haunting beauty and a rural wistfulness. Listening to "Balms of Gilead" is kind of like revisiting your childhood home after many years away.
The project started with Maher's curiosity about and eventual involvement in the Twin Cities community of artists called House of Mercy. She began paging through a Bible and wrote the title track.
It, like the overall theme of the record, is about healing. It's about picking yourself up and moving forward without self-pity or regret. And it presents an unapologetic portrait of the pain and the liberation a soul endures going through the portal of life's trials. "...I hope for the best but surrender to what can happen when you're running for the Balms of Gilead."
Maher's band, live and on this disc, is made up of some of the finest Twin Cities artists (Paul Bergen, Steve Murray, Noah Levy, Marc Perlman, Marc Anderson, Javier Trejo, Peter Sands, Tina Schlieske). This crew fleshes out the skeletons that Maher and Koskinen lay down, and augment the disc's haunting quality that is prominent throughout.
"3200 Mile" opens with the mixed sounds of trains, truck horns, and a string orchestra tuning up. Its title references the breadth of this country and began germinating as a piece of art when Maher lived for eight years in a warehouse that overlooked a train yard. It has an almost bossa nova buoyancy. It's about moving onward after a difficult relationship "...I'm gonna leave here in the morning. I'm gonna head out there in a huff. All your good things have taken up all my best." The starkness to the lyric contrasts nicely with the musical canvas and adds to the power of the separation.
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Maher spent time living in an underground Quonset hut/greenhouse (long before everyone talked about a green way of living) in the high desert of Oregon. She works a day gig in the Twin Cities at a guitar shop and knows her stuff when it comes to vintage guitar gear.
She played for years in a duo with Thomas "Hookhead" Case called Hookhead and Mare. She has, in various aggregations, "shared the stage" with the likes of Ralph Stanley, Marc Cohen, Los Lobos and the Waco Brothers. She's a musician, not just a front man, and she seems happiest just being part of a good group.
Her new disc is full of pain and pleasure, of healing and growth, of running and finding. Maher and Koskinen strike a kind of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings stride with "Balms of Gilead" where the lyric, the musical performance and the production come together beautifully.
John Ziegler has worked in the music industry for more than
32 years as program and music director for a public radio station in Duluth, a record producer, a professional guitarist and a guitar instructor. He writes reviews for the News Tribune. You can reach him at johndziegler@gmail.com .
