The reaction to Tall Tall Shadow (Secret City), Basia Bulat’s third full-length, has been exceedingly positive, a happy circumstance for a performer who made her thus-far moderate fame on the folk singer/songwriter circuit and is now looking to switch things up. Bulat’s first two albums, adept enough affairs, traded mostly in the light arrangements and soft dynamics of contemporary folk music. If her talents extend beyond many of her peers (notably her staggering facility on a wide range of stringed instruments from the dulcimer to the charango), her aesthetic palette as presented on her first two albums was largely traditional. Tall Tall Shadow, by contrast, opens with the stomping, gradual crescendo of the title track, an immediate announcement of increasing speed and volume that sustains for the rest of the record. It’s a sonic gamble for Bulat, who for the first time finds herself pushing her aesthetics into more energetic territory. Still, the song structures and modes are of a piece with her previous releases, making Tall Tall Shadow a furtherance rather than a divergence from her previous work. Bulat will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on her.
Bulat: I had a chance to see Miró’s Blue II at the Centre Pompidou in Paris recently and was really struck by how vast and how deep the painting was. It pulled me right in. I was going to the Pompidou specifically to see Miró’s paintings, but on more than a few occasions I’ve been in a smaller museum or gallery somewhere on tour and was really drawn to an image somewhere across the room only to find that it’s by Miró. I wonder what that means (besides that I like his work).
Video after the jump.
