Vinyl Review: "Unzip The Horizon" by Moira Smiley

Unzip The Horizon

There was once a time in my life that I could only listen to the most extreme music.

Or at the very least that it would be wrong to listen to music that didn't have the right instruments in it.

Could you possibly picture someone like me listening to a banjo album?

Why the very idea!

(Don't worry Twilight Fauna, Sam Gleaves, Tall Tall Trees, and yes, Steve Martin, I'm leading up to something.)

Even more repellent would be listening to acoustic music that wasn't folk music and by folk music, naturally we mean songs like If I Had A Hammer and the what not.

Moira Smiley

Even worse...the idea of listening to someone who plays the PIANO! (Don't worry James Leg.)

The biggest gift this endeavor has given me is the sight beyond sight, much like Lion-O had.

It was difficult seeing beyond what I had wanted to see.

There's a person in my life that was able to convince me to allow myself to listen to music that wasn't bathed in electric guitars.

It took awhile to get to that point today, and I'm sorry, but it took even longer to get to that point in my life.

So, today's vinyl review is the latest album from Moira Smiley.

She's pretty much all of those things that I just talked about. If you look up, you'll see that banjo.

Smiley has an interesting stable of vocal deliveries. She makes it a little bit difficult to settle into a rhythm while listening to the record.

But, in order to change the world, she has to inspire the rest of us to move out of our seats. No one gets up from their seat because it's too comfortable. She seeks our discomfort and finds it. She inspires us to move and make a difference.

She's strong enough to allow many guest musicians on this album and allow them to flourish on her songs. Not only does she have a cavalcade of talented guest musician, but adding difference voices and timbres makes the album more vibrant and colorful.

Smiley makes it hard to tell you about the music. Her songs are sparse, but dense. Beautiful, but serious.

All you need to do is listen to the title track and you'll see what's so amazing about this album. it's a song about singing to the dead. Singing so that the dead will you. It's playing as I type this and the thought and the vocals are giving me chills.

I love that I have this album to share with my family.

The vinyl release has an absolutely stellar pressing. There is zero surface noise on the copy that came to my house.

It comes only in yellow. As happens kind of frequently, it's the only yellow LP that's in my collection. Apparently, it's not cool to simply put out an album in a single, primary color anymore. It's gotta be some getting me disappointed splatter missing one of those colors....or nothing.

Right?

You can order the LP directly from her and it's got an all in, shipped price. That's a rarity.

Release: Out Now
Genre: Americana (or something)
Label: DIY
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