Patty Waters — You Loved Me

(Cortizona)

This one was a late entry, so I include it with the caveat that I haven't fully processed it yet. It is a vinyl remaster that brings together tracks that have been released digitally on a label called Waters Sings, about which I know very little, along with two tracks recorded live at Lone Mountain College in 1974. I think the former tracks were also on the CD compilation You Thrill Me. They are claiming to be a missing link between her emotionally engulfing avant-garde albums for ESP-Disk, and more recent recordings, and I think I'd agree. Waters sounds settled and in complete control here; with every word her voice is a painting. Additionally, there's also the extended piano piece 'Touched By A Rodin In A Paris Museum'. More recent recordings can occasionally feel brittle and sometimes overwhelmingly difficult, but the songs here are possessed of a warmth and ease. That's not to say they're Easy Listening of course, but are possessed of Water's inimitable inflections that encompass sensitivity, grace, and the raw flesh of experience. She sounds strong and purposeful; fiery and loving in her invocations of lust. If you listen to one song this month, make it the a capella 'My Man's Gone Now', a soul-gouging sorrowful blues that is jawdropping, and gave me the timeshift feeling of awe. It is both an exorcism and a prayer; sacred and profane. No streaming up yet but you can hear samples at some record shop sites and the digitals they're sourced from are on YouTube and Spotify etc, but not Bandcamp. (5/16 edit- Bandcamp link here) Jennifer Lucy Allan - The Quietus, May 5th