No big mystery or innuendo in the title above. Just the fact that Tara Jane O’Neil has decided to go the self-titled route only for her eighth album. Maybe she feels reborn. Maybe she thinks it is the best one she’s done so far. Don’t know about the first possibility, but knowing some of the albums she has done before, I’ll definitely opt for the second one.
Now, mind you, she has not made a bad album so far, but this one really stands out with its pastoral mood gentle musicianship with lot of open spaces between notes, akin to the sole masterpiece made by the former Talk Talk frontman Mark Ellis or, strangely enough for comparison by one of the best post-rock bands so far, Richmond Virginia’s Labradford (no wonder one of her previous albums, Where Shine New Lights came out on the label that issued Labradford’s complete output - Kranky). Single word song titles simply drive the point back home.
The thing is, this an intimate, personal album that is at the same time so open and approachable that almost any listener can have a sense that O’Neil is expressing their own intimacy. To pull off something like that you have to have such stellar production and backing that while being good, they let the main artist fully shine and guys like Mike Greenberg of Chicago’s The Cocktails who produced this album or guitar player James Elkington really do exactly the two things they are supposed to - show how good they are and let Tara Jane O’Neal really shine in all her intimate glory.
It is quite audible that Tara is also a visual artist as she came up with the music that can be put in a visual context with all of its open spaces that let the music and lyrics breathe. Try songs like Blow (the single) or Joshua and you’ll have the sense that they practically fit into any moment you happen to listen to them. Albums that achieve are quite few and far between. This one is.
