Boston’s Samantha Farrell certainly knows the sound she’s looking for in each song she composes and records. On some, she sounds like a traditional folk artist with just an acoustic guitar and vocals. On others, Farrell reminds of early 20th century jazz chanteuses. Yet, her earthy vocal, advanced techniques, personality, and songwriter prowess hold her entire September Sun album together, despite the various genres and musical elements she borrows from
Opening with title track “September Sun,” Farrell’s voice is a very pretty susurrant hush. Smooth, lush, and quiet, she exposes deep feelings with her soft thickness of vocals. A haunting soundscape she has wrapped around her voice also carries a lot of feeling. Forlorn melodies from Laurence Scudder’s viola make one feel the distance that the singer is trying to close. One cannot help but be drawn into this singer-songwriter’s world.
A gritty, down tempo number graced by Keith Van Tutt II’s moody cello, “Heavy Hangs The Crown,” impacts the listener’s emotions with its seriousness of purpose. Farrell persistently pushes the song forward with a steady pluck. It’s uncanny how her vocal can be so lush, smooth, pretty while also carrying this kind of message. Co-lead vocalist Erik White mirrors all that goes on in this tune and that thickening of the message stirs the emotions even further.
“Lover’s Prayer” is a dark breeze through memories of a failed relationship. Farrell sings with a fetching high pitched voice that contrasts with an eerie cello line and a sensuous saxophone melody. She makes her voice feel like she’s climbing ever higher, pushing against the depression that makes up the theme here. An ideal scene setter, Farrell creates striking images of someone going through a difficult change and she brings it to like with colorful, striking timbres and tones.
With a pop song’s catchiness, “Like A Leaf” benefits from the way Farrell’s vocal hush contrasts with the rhythmic groove coming from an acoustic guitar. “You Are Gonna Break My Heart” finds Farrell applying her sweet, quirky voice to telling a story that is anything but sweet. This study in contrast works well, making the song more emotionally affective.
“Circles” lets Farrell showcase her jazzy vocal chops. Surrounded by jazz trappings like upright bass pluckiness and lounge like piano melody, she emits that kind of old time nightclub cool that makes this vibe work. Her laidback approach lets her show what she can do amidst cocktail lounge classiness. She also bring a singer-songwriter flair o this jazzy affair, showing how well she can layer multiple elements and genres into one piece.
Continuing in her jazz vein, Farrell plunges right into the breezy, up tempo “Song For Somnus.” Here, her girlishly soft timbre races alongside a brisk upright bass as it lays down the beat. This singer becomes a vocal daredevil, moving around and in and out of the groove fearlessly, an adept vocal performance to be sure.
“Long Night Coming” is a dreamy landscape created by a creeping piano line with notes that ring with dire foreboding. Heavily accented electric and classic guitar notes conjure another layer of darkness. Cooing background vocals present a haunting spirit. Meanwhile, Farrell sings with a hushed timbre that spreads itself over everything in this piece with her girlish vulnerability. Conveying fear, hope, and determination within one vocal timbre, Farrell shows this song who is boss while offering a lot to her listener just by relying on her natural gifts.
Farrell unleashes lovely, lush vocals on “Tuesday Night,” a floating melodic affair with saxophone, classical guitar, and keys all contributing to a flag of pleasantly involving sounds. Farrell’s voice oozes out over this alluring soundscape while also contributing to its beatnik vibe. She draws the listener into her Tuesday night world just as she was drawn into the evening music of a club she might otherwise have walked right by. This singer also manages to write catchy choruses that almost escape detection as choruses, her approach to the vocal being so subtle, shifting into her refrain with an effortless glide.
“For Beauty’s Sake” finds Farrell crooning through a soft soundscape of well placed, tuneful piano chords, and a bit of flintiness from an electric guitar. The tones created by those and other instruments here are striking. Farrell’s shifting vocal timbre adds a secondary layer of allure, injecting a contrast between two distinct voices that are somehow both solid expressions of herself. She just barely kisses the ear with her ever so delicate expressions and creates a beauty of a song.
Closing out her CD with “Some Crazy Dream,” Farrell says goodbye for now with a light accompaniment from acoustic guitar and viola. Her stripped down approach lets the purity of her voice unfurl across the tune, and it’s another treat for the ears as she creates both broad strokes and fine touches of vocal melody.
Farrell not only possesses an extremely fetching voice, she has mastered many vocal techniques and can control the sound and direction of many kinds of songs. Her songwriter’s eye for detail is as clear as the purity of her voice. With a CD like September Sun in her arsenal, she’ll soon become an even more prominent figure in the New England singer-songwriter scene. Bravo.
http://www.samanthafarrell.com/Bo
