Kayla Ringelheim graces her Wandering Feet album with her silky smooth timbre and her stellar lineup of notable local players. Personal stories and emotional honesty make this a very warm and likeable album. Ringelheim composed music that’s loaded with lush melodic and harmonic textures. Producer(and drummer) Lorne Entress pulls a beautiful, natural sound out of the voice and instruments. The singer-songwriter gets by with a little help from her friends. Guest players include Kevin Barry, Duke Levine, Jesse Williams, Richard Gates, and Jamie Edwards.
Ringelheim opens her new disc with the gloriously opulent number “Smiles And Polaroids.” Her vocal flows smooth as honey over her beautiful arcing Wurlitzer melody. Throw in some backing vocals from Vance Gilbert and the song has a lovely lilt. Ringelheim gives this whole tune a muscular backbone with hearty drums and bass and her waves of Wurlitzer running alongside a lovely pedal steel.
“Juliette” finds Ringelheim crooning somberly over a thumpy drum beat and a slowly unfurling slide guitar. This song about letting go makes you feel the uselessness of a current situation and the endless possibilities of moving on. You can feel a person taking small footsteps toward the door. As the slide guitar phrases continue to capture the bittersweet feeling, it creates an emotive effect of moving through a tunnel toward freedom’s light. Ringelheim creates such a wide, expansive sound that the listener sees the story taking place in grand fashion, as if it’s on a movie screen.
Ringelheim‘s gentle vocal phrasing skates over the surface of sweet Wurlitzer progressions and ethereal guitar phrases on “Nobody Knows.” A lilting accordion melody swathes the voice and electric piano in a warm texture of emotion. This song tugs on the ear with that thick texture, and Ringelheim makes you feel she’s guiding you through her lyrical tale.
“Magic Here” finds Ringelheim playing another lovely piano melody. Here, she keeps her melody percolating with sublime textures and a wide, expanding sounds cape. Like a huge painting, this one has a wide, colorful range of richness and tones.
“Pennies” sprawls in gracefully with self-restraint in Ringelheim’s soft, poignant vocal approach. This turns the song, especially during the chorus, into an irresistible, infectious gem. Gentle piano and a light touch of synthesized strings keep the listener engaged, ushering the listener right up to that sweet, memorable chorus.
The jaunty beat of “Corner And Stone” makes you feel the artist is really on the quest she writes about. Ringelheim injects a sweet, hopefulness into her timbre here and that makes the song personable and likable. The harmony with Emily Oglesby makes the chorus take on an entire life of its own. The song open up and welcome you into this tale of searching for a place to live.
“Shoeshine Brothers” offers Ringelheim’s favorite elements, peppy piano and lilting accordion forming a lovely, catchy melody. Her voice injects more of Ringelheim’s personal storyteller’s voice. She lets her affection for this song shine through everything she does here and that gives this one its bright, chirpy personality.
“Two Suns” is blessed with a simple piano melody that rings out with feeling in every note. Ringelheim is uniquely poignant here. She fills each verse with so much feeling and she fills her lyrics with enough imagery to bring her song to vivid life. Angelic when she sustains a vocal note, Ringelheim easily creates beauty with natural instruments.
“Moon” glides into the listener’s consciousness with the susurrant beauty of Ringelheim’s vocal. She presses this one forward with just a touch of assertiveness. Her voice simply forces the music and the story forward. Her images of people living and struggling in solitude makes you realize how many people are truly alone in the world. It is also a testament to her songwriter’s observational powers. Light touches of piano and electric guitar underneath her lovely cooing sets a scene for all of these mini tales.
Ringelheim closes out her album with the darker, heavier piano tone of “Winding Roots.” Her somber yet mournfully beautiful voice stays in the listener’s mind long after the song is over. Her timbre is wide enough to create a lushness of her emotive minor chords. Although a somber song, “Winding Roots” finishes up with a lot of feeling coming from the voice and piano. That emotional depth and musical richness is what Ringeleheim’s album is all about. She leaves us with the notion that everything is going to be all right as long as we have the power to express what we are thinking and feeling.
