Martha Scanlan

In the opening moments of Martha Scanlan’s fourth recording, The River And The Light, there is this pause right before the music kicks in; it occurs like the deep breath in right before a sigh, or the brush of sand against the bottom of a boat being gently pushed into the current. What follows is a journey, and in this day and age of Spotify and playlists it is rare to find a recording coImpelling enough to be so taken into such a journey. There is a sense of aliveness and wonder throughout each song and throughout the album, this sense of anticipation of what awaits around the next bend. “The boat metaphor is interesting, because for both Jon and I these songs have occurred like rivers, like these currents winding in and out and around each other.” Jon is Portland based guitar player, producer and longtime musical collaborator Jon Neufeld. The current one is swept into on the opening track Brother Was Dying is pulsing with rich electric guitar tones, somehow lush and spare all at once, the tension of so many opposites- hope and despair, intimacy and inclusion, birth and death, weaving seamlessly in and out of each other in one winding pulsing groove. It was the first take of a song Martha had just finished writing moments before. “I think it was the only take,” she laughs. This is not unusual for them.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of artist