SOUNDTRACK: ALEJANDRA RIBERA-Live at Massey Hall (February 5, 2016).
I had never heard of Alejandra Ribera before. She has a beautiful deep voice that can really soar.
I love that she sings in English and Spanish (in the same song) and sometimes, because of her delivery it’s hard to tell which language she is singing.
The show begins with her talking about Massey Hall and how the trajectory from the [working in? a] bar to this moment is unexpectedly fast and natural (because when you’re in it, you’re in it) but it has been overwhelming with ‘pinch me’ moments.
She says, “I used to have a poster on my wall with all of these goals… to get played on the CBC and to play at Massey Hall.”
The band is minimal and they create terrific sounds with just (primarily) an acoustic guitar from Jean-Sebastien Williams and upright bass from Cedric Dind-Lavoie)
The first song “La Boca” has the acoustic guitar and upright bass moving briskly with her voice soaring (but low) on top of it–really mesmerizing. She sings parts in Spanish.
“Goodnight Persephone” has a muted picked guitar and bowed upright bass (it opens in vaguely Velvet Underground “Heroin” way until the bowing becomes bigger and deeper). Alejandra sings to Persephone in a wonderful wounded, pleading voice. The ending build with the refrain “keep this light burning bright for me.”
Before starting the next song, “No Mi Sigas” she tells us (not the audience) that when she was a young girl, she had crushes on girls and at the time she knew it wasn’t okay so she started writing poetry that was metaphorical and laden in imagery so no one would know what she was writing about. And now she’s older and it doesn’t matter who she is writing about but she has still taken this approach and it’s why all of her love songs are in Spanish because she lives in Canada.
It’s only a shame that they cut off part of this beautiful song so much while she is talking. She plays guitar as well in this sultry love song while Jean-Sebastien plays some wonderful leads.
“I Want” is an award-winning song and her voice really reaches deep to sing it. She sounds great in this moody piece. And the lyrics are very cool too: “There’s so much labor just in breathing lately.”
“Carry Me” is a bit more uptempo and she sings with that great style of hers–I’d never guess she was Canadian, even with the line “all the snow in Montreal couldn’t bury this.”
Turns out she is of Argentine and Scottish descent but was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, and has been professionally based in Montreal, Quebec.
The bridge of this song is quite compelling with the three of them singing just notes the rise through a scale–strangely compelling. And then Ribera gives a great whistling solo–which people want to applaud for (and should) but no one does.
In the last segment, she says that before playing music publicly she had gone through a nasty depression. She had seen that Ron Sexsmith was playing at Massey Hall and she wanted to go see him. But the depression was too powerful and she checked into St Mike’s across the street. She had checked in for a time and then one night went to the stairs to smoke and saw the Ron was playing at Massey Hall that night. That was the pivotal moment–she was so close–and she decided to get on the other side of that door.
Once again, it’s a shame she talks over so much of her song “Led Me To You” which starts quietly but builds to a great powerful ending (with her on guitar again).
This series has been excellent in introducing me to new artists, and Ribera is a great one I hope to explore more.
[READ: January 9, 2017] “Fifty-Seven”
If you were paying attention, you’ll notice that I have been posting these old New Yorker stories on the date that they were published (no matter what the year). There have been some exceptions (like when there was more than one story in an issue), but I thought it would be a fun thing to keep up). I am making an exception for this because when I read this story and the one after it I felt like they were connected in some way. So I’m moving this to July because there’s a ton of stories to go in November.
I feel like this story was trying to make a point. And I didn’t like it because of that. Although I will say that it seems like Kushner really did a lot of work (unless she happens to know this much about the penal system).
This is the story of a murderer. It is third person but from his point of view. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 