Homemade
Ship
K Records
By Scott Roberts
In the mid- to late-1990s, Rose
Melberg was one half (along with Jen Sbragia) of the duo The Softies, a band
who carved out their own brand of delicate, melodic music — whisper-pop, if you
will — employing only quiet electric guitars and goose-bump inducing harmonies
that brought to mind a sort of female Simon & Garfunkel. On her third solo
CD, Homemade Ship, Melberg’s songs
continue the tradition of the same hushed elegance of The Softies, only this
time the songs are even starker, though just as mystifyingly beautiful.
The clean electric guitars have been replaced with finger-picked
acoustic guitars, seemingly with very few overdubs, deftly played by Melberg.
The harmonies are still ever-present but sound like Melberg singing with
herself (though Larissa Loyva is credited with “occasional” harmony and piano),
a fact that somehow adds a bit more intimacy to the songs; the listener can
easily imagine Melberg sitting alone in a log cabin in the middle of the woods,
warmed by a fireplace, looking out the window at the snow-covered ground
outside, armed only with an acoustic guitar, an angelic voice, and a flair for
non-solipsistic melancholy.
The songs on Homemade Ship
float in the air like fireflies on a summer evening – fascinating and delighting
momentarily, then disappearing. Their barren, brittle innocence certainly isn’t
for everyone, and Melberg, to her credit, seems undeterred by that possibility
as she steadfastly sticks to her own artistic vision. With idiosyncratic lyrics
like “You are a moon singer, and I am only a raccoon” (“Moon Singer”), and
“Illuminate the places in my head where sharks gather” (“Sharks”), and tempos
that rarely go beyond a lilt, Rose Melberg is clearly creating music for
herself and a relatively few like-minded souls who will happily drift slowly
away with her on this Homemade Ship.
