Moira Smiley: “The Rhizome Project” (2024) CD Review

Moira Smiley is a singer and songwriter from Vermont, with a strong voice and her own beautiful and striking style and approach to folk music. She plays several instruments, including piano, banjo, drums and field organ. On her new album, The Rhizome Project, she is joined by Rhizome String Quartet, made up of Brooke Quiggins-Saulnier on violin, Laura Markowitz on violin, Stefanie Taylor on viola, and John Dunlop on cello. There are also several guests on these tracks, including vocalists Merrill Garbus, Taylor Ashton, Samantha Fox, Nuala Kennedy, Jean Rohe, Liam Robinson, Vivien Ellis, and Malcolm Dalglish, as well as drummers JT Bates and Adam Bradley Schreiber, and guitarist Seam Egan. The arrangements are by Moira Smiley.

The album’s first track, “Go Dig My Grave,” begins with some interesting, almost eerie work on strings. And when Moira’s voice comes in, it seems to come to us from another plane. It is beautiful and haunting, giving us the sense that the story itself is rising from the ground, like spirits, like smoke. There are brief moments when the instruments drop out, leaving just the vocals, which are striking. This song is full of ghosts, and Moira Smiley delivers a compelling rendition. Her arrangement is based on an arrangement by Merrill Garbus. “Her papa, he come home from work/Says, where's my daughter?/She seems so hurt/He went upstairs just to give her hope/And he found her hanging from a rope.” There is as much anger as pain there, fitting for our current time when the Republican Party is once again attacking women’s rights.

“Mourning Dove” is a song that Seamus Eagan included on the 2022 release Good Winter, that recording featuring Moira Smiley on vocals. And here Moira delivers a pretty rendition. Her vocal performance is soft, gentle, thoughtful at the start. “I love your song, it calls me to your side/Wind around me as the snow flies/Winter at my window, you wrap me in your solitude.” The strings begin to swell at moments, their work both soothing and uplifting. That’s followed by “My Son, David,” which has an intriguing, almost frightening instrumental opening. Taylor Ashton joins Moira Smiley on vocals, and it becomes a conversation between the two, with an unusual atmosphere backing them. It is a song of violent and authoritarian impulses, arising with things that won’t willingly bow to our will. The two voices come together to deliver the last line, “And I hope that will never be.”

Moira Smiley puts her own mark on Jean Ritchie’s “Now Is The Cool Of The Day,” changing the song’s first line “My lord he said unto me” to “My love she says unto me,” which gives it a very different feel. But the song’s subject and message remain essentially unchanged. This rendition features some excellent work from the string section and another beautiful vocal performance. That’s followed by “Ar Lan Y Môr,” a traditional Welsh folk song, which Moira Smiley sings in Welsh. Its title translates to “On The Seashore” or “By The Sea.” It’s a gorgeous performance, and that song that leads directly into another song of the sea shore, “Standing On The Shore.” This is one that Moira Smiley performed with Solas, that version included on the All These Years album. The version on this new album is a bit shorter. The strings play a great part here. I love the way things build during the repetition of that final line, “No one was on board.” As always, I could do without the sound of the storm at the very end, but that is very brief.

“Soul Cake” begins with some loose, cool percussion. Various versions of this folk song have been sung by artists like Peter, Paul & Mary and Sting. Moira Smiley delivers a surprisingly powerful rendition. She is joined on vocals by Jean Rohe, Liam Robinson and Vivien Ellis. That’s followed by “Oh, Watch The Stars,” which features some pretty work on banjo and strings. I love the atmosphere created at the beginning. This is a song that was included on the 1957 album American Folk Songs For Christmas, performed by the Seeger Sisters. Moira Smiley sang on the Seamus Eagan recording that was included on Good Winter, and she delivers a gorgeous rendition here.

“Awake Awake” is an American folk ballad that has many different versions, known under several different names, including “Silver Dagger” and “Molly Dear” and “Awake Awake Ye Drowsy Sleepers.” Moira Smiley delivers an absolutely beautiful version, with wonderful layers of vocals. Then “John O Dreams” begins with some spoken word, these lines being the first three lines of the poem “Sleeping And Waking” by Naomi Shihab Nye. The spoken word is done by Deborah Felmeth and Summar Taha, and there is more spoken word in the middle of the track, including a line that uses the word shore, a recurring image, here in the line “The voice washes you up on the shore of your life.” The song itself is an interesting lullaby. Here is a taste of the lyrics: “Tomorrow's cares are many dreams away/The stars are flying, your candle's dying /Yield up the nighttime to old John of Dreams.” The track features some nice work on guitar, and concludes with the final lines from the poem. Moira Smiley wraps up the album with “Great Trees,” with Malcolm Dalglish joining her on vocals. The strings here work along with the vocals, almost like other voices themselves. “Receiving sun and giving shade/Their lives a benefaction made/And is a benediction said/Over the living and the dead.”

CD Track List

1. Go Dig My Grave
2. Mourning Dove
3. My Son, David
4. Now Is The Cool Of The Day
5. Ar Lan Y Môr
6. Standing On The Shore
7. Soul Cake
8. Oh, Watch The Stars
9. Awake Awake
10. John O Dreams
11. Great Trees

The Rhizome Project is scheduled to be released on September 6, 2024.