There's a certain irony in the fact that, in recent years, the musical genre least toyed and tampered with, rearranged or otherwise altered and mutated has been pop. Seriously – pop has historically been the most conventionally accessible of any music but, now, the kid gloves immediately go on to ensure that pop tarts reign unchallenged at the top of the media exposure food chain. The upside to that for those who aren't huge on what is generically known as “popular music” is that, with such a homogeneous body of artists operating in the genre, a small, viral entity can enter unnoticed and thrive until (s)he takes over and changes the face of the whole scene from the inside out. Now, this is never a given or sure thing, but a good bet on who could most easily pull such a feat off in 2010 is singer Elisabeth “Lissie” Maurus and the first clue of her contention is embodied by her debut, Catching A Tiger.
The beauty of Catching A Tiger is that, first and foremost, the album only follows pop convention far enough to slip Maurus' foot in the door before proceeds to follow its' own directives as her muses require. That drive is made plain from the moment “Record Collector” opens the record. Using a bit of new country shine and a touch of Seventies R&B soul all coated in a sheath of Top 40 glamor, Lissie bombards listeners with her sweet but breathy (think about a cross between Linda Thompson, Stevie Nicks and KT Tunstall at the beginning of her career and you're getting warm) along with a form of pop that stands as an anomaly now: a sort of guitar-driven folk/country played with genuine (rather than career-minded and contrived) feeling and soul that only begins to feel contemporary as the record progresses – it is a natural growth. It sounds trite in its' own right, but nobody has made pop exactly like this before, and it's good.
Just scratching the surface of the songs on Catching A Tiger reveals them to be post-modern works of art; while “In Sleep” comes very close to simply re-writing Dylan's “All Along The Watchtower,” “Bully” harbors some fantastic stylistic designs that are bolstered by some understated, acid-touched and abstract Flaming Lips-ish production magic while “Little Lovin'” and “Stranger” go still one more step further onto some completely unknown and abstract plains. At first, such turns will surprise listeners and may have them taken aback but, by the time Lissie reaches “Cuckoo,” listeners will be so sold into the idea that they'll be waiting eagerly to hear what comes next.
Maurus doesn't disappoint either. Each stop of the way after the midpoint of the album's run-time yields new adventures as the singer invokes the spirit of June Carter Cash in “Everywhere I Go” and only half-heartedly tells a lover that she doesn't care if he comes, stays, lays or prays if he can't be faithful. In both of those cases (and, more obviously, on “Worried About”) electronics do begin to creep into the proceedings a bit, they remain in the undercurrent for color and will thrill listeners if/when they do find them, but they aren't integral to the drive of any particular song but, as each song passes, the mixes get progressively more exotic and fascinating until Lissie has moved beyond the conventional styling of pop, country and alternative rock; the songs venture further outside as the record progresses until they are uniquely of their own form.
In the end, all the captivating additional trappings melt away and leave Maurus alone to cry at her piano for “Oh Mississippi,” which casts the last arrow to claim the last hearts of any listeners left that haven't fallen to her already, and that completes the deal. In the end, Maurus has delivered an album that is quite unlike the work of her peer group because, while there are sounds used in her songwriting that will attract popular attention, but there are also comparatively subversive elements that grow in stature here, even as the record progresses. Because of that, the question of how Lissie's sound will progress on future releases is left very open at the end of Catching A Tiger; it will truly be interesting to see where the singer's muse leads her – wherever it is, it seems almost destined to seriously change everything that's currently happening in pop.
Artist:
www.lissie.com/
www.myspace.com/lissiemusic
Album:
Catching A Tiger is out now. Buy it here on Amazon .
