While Cara Luft may not be a household name, her sound will be familiar to roots audiences as one-third of the original Wailin’ Jennys. She has now ventured out on her own with The
Light Fantastic.
On songs like “Give it Up” and “No Strength,” Luft comes across like a grown-up rebel girl. On “Give it Up” she admonishes a faithless lover, singing “I’m too old for games honey/ But you know the old ones are the best/
If you ever find your way out of prep school you can call me….” These two guitar-focused songs tackle what it means to be a woman— and the refusal to suffer the same bullshit you did as a girl. Here, it seems, Luft fits the model of the dynamic yet sensitive girl with a guitar, along the lines of Shawn Colvin.
However, the idea of a viable country career is also within the range of possibilities for Luft. The twangy weeper “Down to the River” and the travellin’ song “There’s the Train,” with its pitch-perfect strings, are deceptive in their simplicity—like the best country music.
But the real standouts here are the album’s least commercial pieces. With its nod to philosophers Albert Schweitzer and Friedrich Nietzsche, the use of Eastern instruments and Luft’s hypnotic arrangement, the nearly six-and-a-half-minute, spiritually evocative opus “The Light” is quite simply stunning.
The Light Fantastic is the fulfillment of a talent hinted at on the Wailin’ Jennys’ second album, 40 Days.
http://www.caraluft.com
