Catnip
Irene Jackson
Moonstone Productions
2000
11 tracks
Irene Jackson writes songs that are at once familiar and unexpected, at times even startling. Jackson's lyrics are tightly written tales of everyday life told simply and sympathetically yet often incorporating deeper philosophical insights. Her music seems pretty simple over all then, just when you've settled in and got comfortable, it changes, sometimes rearing up to confront you, sometimes slinking off to some dark corner and waiting for you to follow. Jackson is one of Canada's more interesting little-known songwriters.
Jackson is hidden in the lost horizon of Canada's lush Shangri-La of Vancouver, Victoria and the islands floating off the west coast. The Pacific Range seems to serve as metaphorical Himalayas hiding any number of fine artists from the rest of the world. Perhaps if Jackson, whose work seems forever young, were to venture beyond the mists of this artists' paradise her work would become ancient and die. Perhaps not. Jackson is a songwriter and performer who should become better known across Canada, across America, around the world.
While Jackson's greatest talent is certainly as a writer of lyrics, her skills as an arranger and performer are the perfect complement to her words. Jackson's melodies are pretty straightforward and are, in general, unremarkable on their own. Jackson's arrangements, with their jumpy rhythms and often unannounced shifts in tempo, mood, and style bring her songs into a higher realm. Add to this her abilities as a singer, and the songs of Irene Jackson become something very special indeed.
"Who You Are" starts off with an almost Ritchie Valens guitar riff then slips into a standard singer-songwriter rhythm for most of the song. The surprise in this package is an eleven-second slice of reggae thrown in about three-quarters of the way through the song. It adds just the right amount of spice to an already interesting mix.
A classic Jackson shift that works exceptionally well, the last verse of "Alright to Cry" abruptly drops from its previously bright tempo to a slower, moodier ambience that perfectly complements the transition from life to life's passing. While it is prefigured in some of Jackson's earlier lines, here her phrasing, intonation and mood remind me ever so much of parts of Don McLean's classic "American Pie."
Jackson's rhythms tend always to be off. Rhythmically, the songs are right on and often very tight indeed. But her rhythms seem always to sound like they belong to one genre or the other without ever being an exact fit. The rhythm tracks of her songs range broadly from sort of piano bar, to near funk, to almost reggae, to latinish sounds, to bluesy riffs, and to solid rock and roll. Often there will be subtle shifts mid-song from one rhythmic style to another, yet the change always suits the song.
"Lets Make Trouble" is a lively rock and roll song with a grooving rhythm track. There's irrestistable humour in this song's story of earnest seduction and half-hearted resistance. By the time the song ends, the listener is left waiting, if not longing, for more. What a perfect song to start the set.
The set ends just as well, with the title song. "Catnip" sets out its tale in a saucy metaphor that brings to mind some of the baudy blues songs of the the Forties that had also morphed human behaviour into animal form. The music, performed by The Estipods with Jackson on vocals, establishes and maintains a lively jump blues rhythm that, along with solid male vocals that chase Jackson's lines on the chorus, maintains the classic feel of this song. This is a song that's bound to get the audience up and dancing, or at least bopping at their tables.
Irene Jackson is definitely worth more than one listen, and Catnip is the ideal place to start. Once you've heard it, you may conclude that Jackson's music is the cat's meow.
Learn more about Irene Jackson at www.irenejackson.com. Listen to clips from Catnip here. Read my previous review of Jackson's release Motor Scooter at Sound Bytes.
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Review written: March 12, 2005
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