In the blurb accompanying ‘Not Even Happiness’ we learn that Julie Byrne, a New York City resident who moonlights as a park ranger, “readily admits she can’t read music and doesn't even listen to it all that much - the first vinyl she owned was indeed, her own”.
The latter part of the statement, about not really listening to music, speaks of the essence of this record, which is the follow up to 2014's ‘Rooms With Walls and Windows’, a work of similarly fine guitar-led folksy calmness.
The purity of the music on this album is inescapable. Byrne is a writer clearly unbothered by trends, or motivated to aggressively chase commercial success, and the lyrics to Melting Grid appear to touch upon the fact: “And if the roses need not tending/Until noon I’d sleep/But never could I have gone on that way/Because money was not the thing that yielded sight.”
And while so much might be expected from an indie label folk artist, there’s real pleasure to be had here. Songs like Sea as it Glides and Morning Dove hold you close, combining Byrne's beautifully organic sound - mostly just guitar and vocals - with washy reverb-drenched lyrics that that could have come from any decade since the 1960s. This is a record with a dreamy softness, and the simplicity and quietness of the melody lines belie a deep sophistication.
Like Van Morrison - another musician who claims a degree of ignorance outside his own musical world - one can identify a profound philosophical individualism within the work, something bordering on the religious which seems to both defy and support the role of artist simultaneously. This is a record of integrity, of quiet passions, but it’s also, bizarrely, one that seems to lack a point of view.
And herein lies the problem with the approach mentioned at the start. While one cannot fault the sincerity of ‘Not Even Happiness’, there is a lack of fresh lyrical concepts here, as well as melodies that stick around. That’s something that might change with a more curatorial approach to composition.
Byrne’s work is elegant and personal, but it can also be samey and rather directionless. What makes folk singer-songwriters important is that they speak to us about ideas and emotions that are both timeless and immediate, be they romantic, philosophical or political. 'Not Even Happiness' doesn't really do this. The songs would be would be equally appropriate accompanying a Girls end-of-season montage, sex or a Google advert. For all its purity, it lacks definition.
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