'The Ghost Who Walks'
Karen Elson, aka Mrs. Jack White, heeds her own haunting muse at Spaceland
By Bliss 06/03/2010
An unmistakable Southern flavor imbues British model/songwriter Karen Elson’s music, bringing to mind the well-documented links bonding Anglo-Saxon and Celtic balladry and rhythms to American folk and country. But ancestry (and an acknowledged P.J. Harvey influence) has less to do with the regional redolence of her songs than geographical proximity. Elson lives in Nashville with her husband, Jack White (White Stripes/Raconteurs/Dead Weather), and their two children. Her just-released debut “The Ghost Who Walks,” recorded at White’s Third Man studio, is steeped in gothic imagery and themes familiar to aficionados of old-time music or Flannery O’Connor stories. Knives, blood, moons, ghosts, birds and fields of grass appear as ominous portents in Elson’s songs.
Elson had purportedly been writing songs for some time before White coaxed her into playing them for him. Liking what he heard, White ushered his wife into the studio with an enviable band: guitarist Jackson Smith, My Morning Jacket’s Carl Broemel on pedal steel and Dead Weather bassist Jack Lawrence, with White manning drums.
It sounds like a White production from top to bottom, and Elson’s songs are the better for the textured theatricality he brings to arrangements. The title track, a murder ballad rife with violent images and a “Pretty Polly”-type storyline, is fleshed out with waterfalling electric piano figures. The woozy “100 Years From Now” and Dust Bowl tale “Mouths to Feed” were written for the Citizens Band, a politically oriented cabaret collective Elson performed with in New York before relocating to Tennessee with White in 2005 — which may be why she sounds most confident on those tunes. Her light soprano’s reminiscent of Jenny Lewis, minus Lewis’ seductive slow burn.
White’s contributions enhance the pervasive atmosphere of Elson’s songs, initially obscuring the fact that her melodies are often more moody than memorable. The strongest are rooted by distinct hooks and riffs: the title track, “Lunasa” (written by Citizens Band mate Rachelle Garniez), “A Thief at My Door” and “The Truth is in the Dirt” (“The truth is in the dirt on the ground/ Not in your gilded cage with your rusted spoon/ When the ground splits open it will swallow you”).
The album’s attracting significant media attention for a debut by an unknown (as a musician) artist, thanks to Elson’s cover-girl style and status as Mrs. Jack White. It’s also an illustrative example of the old maxim “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.” A high-fashion model recording her own songs exposes herself to only slightly less caustic ridicule than the wife of a rock star stepping out in her own pair of independent singer-songwriter shoes. Which is unjust, because “The Ghost Who Walks,” while problematic, is promising enough to warrant interest in what Elson does next.
KCRW presents Karen Elson at Spaceland, 1717 Silver Lake Blvd., Silver Lake, 8 p.m. Wednesday; $12. Call (213) 833-2843 for more information. karenelson.com.
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