How songwriter Molly Healey creates a Missouri masterpiece with "Lotus"
Twice on Molly Healey's new album "Lotus," the singer-songwriter sounds as though she's lifting listeners to somewhere just like heaven.
The first comes almost immediately, on the opening cut "Nothing You Can't Do." A soulful choir sounds its soaring, wordless call, ushering in the forward motion of strings. The choir returns often, upholding Healey's Carole King-esque melody and enfleshing her poetic affirmations:
"My story's yours / Your story's mine / Just give it time."
Much later in the tracklist, the early measures of "From Afar" — evoking the lovely winding and unwinding of gears — give way to Healey's gently persistent vocal, which takes an astral bend, reaching toward light and surrounded by ethereal strings.
The rest of "Lotus" measures, then re-measures the span between heaven and earth, between folk, rock and classical music, offering needed observations from the gap.
Healey, who calls Springfield home, is a welcome voice across the state. Also a remarkable violinist and cellist, she has played from within bands such as The HipNecks and Big Smith; Healey currently handles fiddle duties for the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and plays mid-Missouri often enough to be considered a local.
On "Lotus," she plays in the company of her band, a trio of aces — guitarist Zach Harrison, drummer Danny Carroll and bassist Kyle Day — to make a sound that is never merely one thing at a time.
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Bending strings and uniting genres
Healey and Co.'s musical flexibility is evidenced early, on second track "Vice." Pizzicato strings create a slinky sensibility; joined by Carroll's small thunderclaps of percussion, then the whole band, the song assumes a sleek, serpentine groove befitting its title.
Harrison's guitar eventually takes the lead, riffing in a way that's minimalistic yet colored with several shades of the blues; his unfaltering lines set up Healey's interpolation of "House of the Rising Sun," which adds both sobriety and a sense of danger to the arrangement.
"Gravity" follows, with the scratch and scuff of strings, Punch Brothers-style, and Healey wielding her voice like an AM radio country queen. Her ability to extend a syllable lends layer upon layer of meaning.
"Forever Midnight" opens with a jangly bit of Harrison guitar, then Carroll's cymbal shimmer establishes a more ethereal feel, complete with exquisite harmonies from Healey's daughter, Annabelle Moore. Healey's warm fiddle and the band's collective momentum keep carrying the song, up and away toward some distant, beautiful satisfaction.
"Us and Them" swirls, both psychedelic and jazz-forged, before ironing its chorus smooth, the combination like something from the catalog of Suzanne Vega or Edie Brickell.
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Elsewhere, "Glory Box" is a study in groove and collective motion with terrific low-end playing. Strummed and plucked strings dance on the head of a pin, driving "Eye to Eye," framing Healey's concerned lyrics which unite the global and intimate.
And album closer "One Year In" further unites the the ambient and grounded sides of Healey's music, resulting in lovely, textured moments.
"Lotus" feels like Healey's masterpiece to date, an unspooling and restitching of connections — between herself and her band, between sonic approaches and between the spiritual and material. These songs travel liminal spaces but, in their warmth, keep listeners company on the journey, assuring and guiding them, singing on their behalf.
Healey will play an album release show with Meredith Shaw Thursday, Dec. 8 at Rose Music Hall; tickets are $8-$10. Learn more at https://rosemusichall.com/ and find Healey's music at https://mollyhealey.bandcamp.com/.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Molly Healey's layered sound blossoms on 'Lotus'
