I'M A HARMONY

LINDA PERHACS joined a small but distinguished club of artists who released a mere album decades ago, in her case the year 1970 and then like an ephemeral flower child who withered away for a full 44 years rose from the ashes to sing like a songbird once again. While her first album "Parallelograms" fit in quite well with the lysergic psychedelic vibes of the late 60s ceding to the swinging 70s, PERHACS herself was far from the hippie persona that many assume she was from the dreamy double image overlay of her debut album cover. She was in fact a serious dental hygienist who just happened to write beautiful folk music in her spare time and during her time in Beverly Hills, she found herself with the famous cinematic composer Leonard Rosenman in her dental chair and after more than a little small talk and a sampling of her demos, Rosenman was so smitten with LINDA's angelic estrogen folk that he offered to produce an entire album's worth of material.

The album was a complete bomb despite its abundance of perfectly infused psychedelic folk sounds that were the epitome of the zeitgeist of the era. What seemed like a dream come true suddenly became a harsh reality. The dental job paid the bills, the music career did not. LINDA would scrap her dreams of usurping Joan Baez as the queen of folk and carried on as if it was just that, a dream that evaporates into the ethers. However, the album that very few listened to at the time quietly caught on as the ensuing decades slipped by and as the 90s hit, "Parallelograms" was a phenomenal cult legend made all the more famous by Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt ceaselessly promoting it as well as tracks appearing in the strangest places such as in Daft Punk's film "Electroma." With all the hysteria continuing to mushroom into epic status, PERHACS decided that perhaps it was time to revisit this music thing and at long last in 2014 released her sophomore album "The Soul of All Natural Things," a return to the dreamy folk laden past fortified with modern day embellishments such as new age electronics and dream pop sensibilities.

While the debut was a solo job through and through, the return to grace incorporated the talents of newer blood on the scene which is exactly what happened when LINDA's third album I'M A HARMONY exploited with not only a couple extras on board but a veritable who's who of folk and ambient music of the 21st century which included Nels Cline of Wilco, Devendra Banhart, The Autumn Defense, Durga McBroom, Michelle Vidal, Pat Sansone, Mark Pritchard as well as a return from Julia Holter who dominates the cameo spot with four tracks. For the most part I'M A HARMONY picks up where "The Soul of All Natural Things" left off with less emphasis on LINDA's 1970 psychedelic folk aspects and focuses more on catchy dream pop that for the most part utilizes gentle acoustic guitar arpeggios to create light soothing melodies that rely less on complex musical structures and present a more radio friendly ambient pop vibe. PERHACS was very impressed with the electronic aspects of the previous album and implements them here even more liberally.

One of the things that made "The Soul of All Natural Things" such a beautiful comeback was that all the tracks were super catchy but didn't sound too overtly poppy. The tracks connected the dots between the past and the present with LINDA's vocal abilities sounding more or less in tact despite having reached the age of 70. In many ways, the music of I'M A HARMONY reminds me of The Cocteau Twins much like presented on albums like "Victorialand," except on I'M A HARMONY tends to implement intermittent episodic usage of downtempo beats that alternate with the dream pop while everything is hazily embellished with a temperamental atmospheric cloud cover to perhaps lighten the earnest subject matter of the metaphysical meeting the physical and the bruised emotions that result of the trials and tribulations of life on the physical plane. There are also touches of bossa nova and Spanish flamenco that creep in at times and to be honest sound a little out of place here.

From the production point of view, I'M IN HARMONY is beautifully constructed with all the dreamy elements finding perfect resolution in tandem with the amazing vocal harmonies and melodies however this album is a tad weaker than its predecessor due to the inconsistency of the songs. Some are saccharine and sickly sweet such as the over-earnest triteness of tracks like "Crazy Love" and "One Full Circle Around The Sun" but mostly there are too many tracks that just simply sound too much alike, something the previous albums eschewed. The formula seems to have been found and put on rotation. However there are some really stand out tracks here and those for me happen to be the ones that include Julia Holter, especially the lengthy title track which is the only psychedelic trip that evokes the distant past of 1970. The other amazing number is "Visions" which also resonates with the most psychedelic moments which begins with a wordless vocal duet, the expected arpeggiated folk pop and a much more interesting mixing job that finds interesting tribal percussion, echoey vocals and one of the most interesting melodic developments of the entire album.

I was certainly resistant to even check out "The Soul of All Natural Things" since very few artists have the chops to pull off a comeback four decades later but after the surprise of being quite impressed with that album, i was eager to explore the final journey of the so far released albums that LINDA PERHACS has graced the world with but unfortunately this one slips down a couple notches from the predecessor by lacking the consistency that keeps the listening experience pristine and heavenly. Add to that it seems that LINDA's age may have finally caught up with her since despite sounding awesome for a woman in her 70s, sounds like she has lost a bit of her dynamic range which makes me suspect that perhaps tracks on the last album were recorded long before the current era and only re-recorded musically. Of course this is all speculation but it's really the material the counts and unfortunately the great tracks on here only make it clear how weak the bad ones are. Still though, not a bad listen, just not as good as what came before and fans didn't have to wait another 44 years for new material.

3.5 but rounded down