Jodie Marie’s New EP Reviewed
We’ve already reported on the remarkable story behind Pembrokeshire singer/songwriter Jodie Marie‘s latest record. Here is a review of her new six-track EP, Polar Night.
This mini-album, inspired by Jodie Marie’s three weeks living beyond the Arctic Circle in almost continuous darkness, has a clarity that chimes with what seems to have been a period of calm and literally cool reflection.
It opens with sounds that definitely speak of another place and which reinforce that feeling of being as one with clear, cold air that could take the breath away.
Jodie learned from meeting the indigenous Sámi people of northern Norway about their “joiks” – wordless songs that represent the essence of a person or a thing or place. Although this first track, Seiland, is not a joik, she says, it is her attempt to use her voice (in fact, her voices, since she is quadrupled in harmony) to convey the spirit of this island where she experienced the dark Arctic winter. It is an ethereal introduction to an emotional song cycle.
The title track is a more lyrically conventional song but it continues the wistful, soulful feeling of being immersed in a stark, pure atmosphere. As with all the tracks, it is Jodie’s voice that is the main event with instrumental backing being sparse to the point of hardly being there.
The real earworm of the set comes with Blue Hour, a spine-tingler of a song about how aloneness and closeness do not preclude each other. And Closer To You treads similar ground – with heartfelt singing about apartness and togetherness being intertwined.
The first single from the EP, Eye Of The Storm, has an almost Daniel Lanois-type vibe that sets off the wild and strangely dark atmosphere of the track.
The closing song, Reindeer Heart, is “a direct thank you to the Sámi people”, says Jodie. “The Sámi say that external warmth comes from the sun and internal warmth from the reindeer’s heart.”
She spent time with reindeer herders and she was on a mountain top with 3,000 reindeer when she watched the sun rising above the horizon – something it had not done for three months. The sound of the reindeer in that moment is featured at the end of this wonderfully passionate song – and concludes a wonderfully passionate record.
* The Polar Night EP is released by Carmel Records on 5 May. The first single, Eye of the Storm, is already out; and the second single, Blue Hour, is out on 28 April. Jodie Marie will perform all the songs live at StudiOwz (the former Carmel Baptist Chapel), Clarbeston, on 9 and 10 May. More information: www.jodiemarie.com.
