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Well, no. It's not purely nostalgic—at least not for me—because she's still making music, still reinventing herself, and her newer stuff is every bit as good as the records that made her reputation.
True, she's indulged in a bit of nostalgia herself, lately, in revisiting and re-recording her old songs—but I was listening to Turbulent Indigo the other day—her last album of new material, IIRC—and god damn, she's on cracking form.
What's changed is that her newer songs are less diaristic (and as much as I love her 70s work, esp. the wonderful Hejira, it is almost neurotically self-obsessed) and writing more in characters. That takes some getting used to, I suppose, but she's so supremely gifted that she carries off the transition. "How Do You Stop" has melody for days: "The Magdalene Laundries" is a sharp sketch, angry but without bitterness.
Best song, though, is the closer: "Sire of Sorrows (Job's Sad Sad Song)". A loose, multi-part structure, vocal arrangement that recalls the work of Jane Siberry (herself an artist with clear Mitchell influences), strong, defiant, theologically coherent.
And as with all her records, it just sounds beautiful. Her least-acknowledged contribution to the music—her production duties—is, I think, her most important: not just for the making her records sound so damned good, but also for opening up the clubhouse for singer-songwriters generally (and women songer-songwriters in particular) to get access to that toolset—that freedom to craft the sound of their own records to suit their particular agenda. |
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