Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Go to the Jessica Bailiff website  Jessica Bailiff - Feels Like Home [Kranky - 2006]

Feels like home is the fourth album by Toledo based singer songwriter Jessica Bailiff, her other three albums have also been released by Kranky.

The cover art, a black and white picture of a doll sitting in a toy cart provides a suitable metaphor for the music within, delicate melancholic laments and folk melodies bringing to mind quieter times and personal journeys.
The album begins with simple piano chords which jump unexpectedly to strummed guitar. Bailiff sings the title of the song what’s inside your mind with a mix of breathy exuberance and backing vocals.
Lakeside Blues is mostly played on guitar and is a wonderful folk lament with acoustic guitar melody and distant recorder. It’s sedate and autumnal.

The albums three central tracks Cinq, Spiral dream and evidence all make use of editing effects and tricks of the mixing desk to weave an atmosphere of dreamlike ambience and remembrance. Piano is the main instrument on the first track with the simple chords and notes swirling around as electric bass and guitar are combined with Russian spoken word courteousy of Nelly Josephine and Iulia. These tracks move Bailiffs sound out of  new folk and into an almost baroque classical mood.

Evidence and Pressing both have a lovely guitar riff that Michael Cashmore of Current 93 would be proud of, and a popish chorus that recalls another C93 collaborator Rose Mcdowall. Bailiffs voice occasionally does recall some of Mcdowalls work in Strawberry Switchblade.
If we could is my favourite of the material here, dense droning feedback and whispered processed vocals that further enhance the feeling that the album is very much about dreaming and childlike words of imagination.

My only gripe with this record is that it’s only half an hour long!! Yet it’s advertised as a full album.

Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5Rating: 4 out of 5

Duncan Simpson
Latest Reviews

Jessica Bailiff - Feels Like Home
Feels like home is the fourth album by Toledo based singer songwriter Jessica Bailiff, her other three albums have also been released by Kranky.
190424   Zachary James Watkins - Affir...
180424   Ulvtharm - 7 Uthras
180424   The Bad Shepherd - The Bad Sh...
180424   Impulse - Impulse( Blu Ray)
170424   Jan Jelinek - Social Engine...
170424   Carlos “Zíngaro”, Guilherme R...
160424   The Borderlands - The Borderl...
160424   Rien - The New Source Recording
160424   Worship - Thoughts
150424   Lion-Girl - Lion-Girl(Blu Ray)
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom