(2021) Margo Cilker - Pohorylle      


Review:
On the very first line of the first song of her first album, Oregon singer-songwriter Margo Cilker describes a frozen and treacherous patch of ice. “That river in the winter, it could fuck me up,” she sings on “That River,” drawing out that f-bomb until it sounds like a bruise. “Crack my ribs, bust my lips, it could do enough.” It’s a vivid introduction to this country artist, who pushes against conventions of the genre that don’t fit her perspective. Simply describing a river as malevolent contradicts depictions of those winding bodies of water as sites for baptism and rebirth or as vehicles for escape from the hardships of the world. Cilker sounds like she’s thinking hard about what it means to express herself in this particular musical form, and as a result, Pohorylle conveys a distinct and lively personality. Cilker recorded these songs far from the country mainstream, which allows her to put her own stamp on the music. Instead of traipsing down to Nashville, she stayed put in the Pacific Northwest, seeking out as a mentor Sera Cahoone, a veteran of that region’s indie scene both as part of the autocorrect-challenging band Carissa’s Wierd and as a solo artist. With a small band of Portland indie lifers, including Jenny Conlee-Drizos (Decemberists) on keys and Rebecca Young (Jesse Sykes) on bass, Cilker and Cahoone create a palette that’s both austere and weirdly lush, thoughtful and easygoing, full of lovely, subtle flourishes like the start-stop rhythms of “Brother, Taxman, Preacher” and the sympathetic New Orleans horns that light up “Tehachapi” like a strand of Christmas lights at a backyard party. Folding in enough places, names, and plainspoken observations to warrant comparisons to Lucinda Williams, Cilker is a sly presence on Pohorylle (whose title refers to both a backpack company and a photojournalist who died during the Spanish Civil War). She can break a syllable to break your heart, as she does on “Flood Plain,” stretching out a sad ultimatum during the chorus. But she can also bring home the reality of what the world withholds from women, whether it’s the benefit of the doubt or basic security. On “Broken Arm in Oregon,” she sings about a woman recovering from an assault, painting the scene with a directness that underscores her trauma: “Now every room she sleeps in, she’s gotta map out her escape plan,” Cilker explains matter-of-factly. But she grows more animated when she tells you what that experience took from her: “Imagine all those hours devoted to bigger things.” There’s also a little humor in Cilker’s voice, and she delivers some lines with an arched eyebrow—like she knows some secret that lies just beyond the lyrics. “Will you think of me on your way back to Tehachapi?,” she asks a departing lover, turning a simple goodbye into a kiss-off. She delivers the question like a taunt because she’s happy where she is: struggling but struggling toward something. Yearning is the album’s animating theme, and what Cilker yearns for most, even more than somebody who’ll stick around, is a few more hours in the day, a few more chances for happiness. “It’s my life,” she sings on closer “Wine in the World.” “I just wish I had more time.” It’s a little unsettling to hear an artist so fixated with death on her debut, but on Pohorylle, such gravity feels earned, even natural. — By Stephen M. Deusner @ pitchfork




Track List:
01 - That River
02 - Kevin Johnson
03 - Broken Arm in Oregon
04 - Flood Plain
05 - Tehachapi
06 - Barbed Wire (Belly Crawl)
07 - Chester's
08 - Brother, Taxman, Preacher
09 - Wine in the World


Media Report:
Genre: americana
Country: Oregon, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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