Skip to main content[WINTER FOLK] Some albums are intrinsically linked to certain times of year, and—even though WW received a rough copy of Laura Gibson's If You Come to Greet Me back in July—it was clear even during those oppressively hot days that the local folkstress had channeled a Northwestern winter on her achingly beautiful debut. The album art depicts a lonely bird perched among bare-branched trees, and the gray-washed scene offers a fitting introduction to songs that feel like walking among falling leaves or holing up during rainy days and nostalgically fingering old photo albums. As if Gibson kept in mind the equanimity Portland demands during winter months, If You Come To Greet Me exhibits beauty in patience.
On the opening track, 'This Is Not the End,' Gibson uses thoughtful vocal pauses to draw listeners in—every line acts as a welcome tease, each word as bait for the next. Likewise, Gibson's careful plucking of her classical guitar and the album's soft, sweeping arrangements—expertly played by such notables as Norfolk & Western's Adam Selzer and Rachel Blumberg, Horse Feathers' Peter Broderick, Desert City Soundtrack's Cory Gray and Dolorean's Al James—create a tapestry of sonic longing. 'Hands In Pockets,' the album's most upbeat, outwardly catchy song, is perhaps the only time light breaks clearly through the clouds: Crisp trumpet, shuffling drums and bright piano set the mood as Gibson hopefully sings, 'Tell me the season's almost over'; her refrain, however, sets the mood: 'I-I-I can wait.'
Taking listeners right back into the cold, 'Nightwatch' is laden with a ghostly musical saw that whistles like a brisk wind throughout the song. But Gibson counters her album's melancholy folk arrangements with vocals that are as wise as they are warm. It's only on 'The Longest Day,' when Gibson pleads, 'Don't leave me now/ In my darkest hour/ As the longest day/ Turns night' over ringing vibraphone, that her lovely, breaking alto denies listeners the quiet assuredness that inhabits the rest of the album. For the most part, Gibson's stories—'Small Town Parade' playfully weaves a speculative fairy tale about creating a simpler existence, while 'Country, Country' glorifies a hard-but-rewarding pastoral life—are charmingly winsome despite their often somber, contemplative nature. They're the stuff of daydreaming and wondering, remembering and yearning—things Portland's painfully wet winter months accommodate perfectly.
Laura Gibson celebrates the release of If You Come to Greet Me with Loch Lomond and Nick Jaina Sunday, Nov. 19, at the Doug Fir. 9 pm. $6. 21+.
WWeek 2015