As
Reviewed:
A Beautiful Piece of Heartache - Fly Magazine
John Keats once wrote about the miracle of melancholia,
the idea that only by experiencing sorrow can a
person know true joy. That idea – the “fertility
of pain” – is what makes the music of
Jessica Smucker Falcon and her band of merry men,
The Sleeping World, so affecting. The songs are
woven with a sort of defiant sadness, a square-jawed
resilience that only comes once you’ve been
knocked off your feet a few times and lived to tell
about it.
Also a successful poet (and writer, casting director
and film production coordinator), Smucker Falcon
has a knack, if not a compulsion, for dumping out
her proverbial purse on the table. She’s been
writing music for about eight years, and poetry
for even longer, so the process of digging deep
into her personal history for lyrical fodder is
more or less like second nature.
“It’s not scary, but it’s tricky,”
she explains. “The idea of exposing my raw
nerves to strangers is less daunting than the task
of doing it right. The closer the song is to my
heart – the more it taps into a pocket of
pain that is still active for me – the harder
it is for me to accept anything less than a smooth,
perfect performance.”
Musically, The Sleeping World has a few obvious
touchstones – melody-centric writers like
Over The Rhine, Patty Griffin and Leonard Cohen
(the band got its name from a Cohen quote), as well
as several female artists (Liz Phair, PJ Harvey,
Alanis Morissette) for whom timidity has never been
an issue. At times lilting, shuffling, uplifting
and melancholic, the music is also characterized
by a certain menacing factor, something sinister
lurking just under the surface, like swallowed anger.
“Sometimes, in order to work through a philosophical
question or problem that’s eating at me, I
have to go to this dark, sinister place in my mind
and dredge up the roots of the problem in order
to find my way to the other side of it,” Smucker
Falcon says. “I’m conscious of it. I’m
self- conscious about it. I worry that it will be
misunderstood.
“There’s a
lot of heavy sh*t in these songs, but I write them
because I’m trying to find something true.”
While Smucker Falcon has been writing music as an
emotional outlet for years, it wasn’t until
early 2007 that, at the encouragement of some musician
friends, she entertained the idea of it being an
actual pursuit. After tossing a few songs out into
the ether, she was able to attract an able-bodied
cast of players to back her, including (after a
few personnel shifts) Lancaster mainstays Matt Underhill
and Tommy Leanza. And before she knew it, The Sleeping
World just kind of was.
“It started happening in spite of me. I didn’t
seek it out. It found me,” Smucker Falcon
says. “I had just moved back to the area,
was recently divorced, between jobs … Everything
about my life at the time was transitional, so I
had this enhanced openness to the whims of fate
– or whatever. I figured if I let myself float
for a while, I might end up somewhere good. And
I did.
“It’s been the most challenging and
rewarding creative pursuit of my life so far,”
she adds.
The Sleeping World is currently in the midst of
recording its debut EP, with a full-length album
to follow within the year. Beyond that, the band
will continue to spread that little miracle of melancholia
around the midstate and collect more fans –
like the one who decided to show her appreciation
by making Smucker Falcon a battery-operated light-up
bra.
“I thought that was the best thing ever –
even though I’ll probably never have the guts
to wear it on stage,” she laughs. “I’m
a sucker for a good story, so for me it’s
a highlight when something weird happens. For example,
if some drunk lady comes up to me after a show and
starts petting my dress or giving me wet kisses
on my ears, it’s kind of a highlight.”
To each her own.
On The Web:
http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=249992
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