Edging on the eery and magical, Erin Ivey’s strong and steady voice begins Dreamy Weather with, “It’s dreamy weather we want / you wave your crooked wand / along an icy pond with a frozen moon” in “Alice,” a track full of madness and blissful imagery that sets the stage for the rest of her album. Ivey’s second full-length solo LP was recorded live at the Cactus Cafe earlier this year, boasting nine songs – both new and old – heavy with reflective, and somewhat lascivious, lyrics and a bold urban-folk sound.
Ivey’s steamy, coquettish track “Chocolate” is a hybrid of French and English filled with tantalizing lyrics like “I love the taste of you melting on my tongue / I want the worst of you more than the best of anyone / it’s like confection when your lips are touching / I could go through boxes of you at a time.” Her playful video downplays the sultry nature of the song by portraying her lover as a monkey – with a narrative involving the monkey getting turned away from bars, reading Hustler during a romantic picnic and her eating a semi-rotten banana while singing. There have been several claims that it’s racist, or at least must be suggesting something to do with race (with the monkey, themes of chocolate and masculinity, etc), but either way the video doesn’t do this impressive track justice on many levels. Erin Ivey’s voice and musical ability are far from amateur, and the video’s silly storyline and somewhat lacking aesthetic quality just don’t quite measure up. (Totally got a quick flashback to Kings of Leon releasing the “Radioactive” music video in 2010…good, sophisticated artists please don’t touch questionably racist subtexts!)
I was magnetically drawn to the poetry in her lyrics, especially in “Canyon” (“My heart is an endless highway over difficult terrain / my love is a canyon / my love is a canyon dark and steep”) or in “Oh, Light” (“Oh love what will I do when you leave me / your heart is careless as the sea / drift on the easy blue / I wish for winds that we once knew”). Ivey is an artist, not just through her music, but through her words and profound sentiments on spirituality, intimacy, separation, and the art of sound itself (“Whisper of the Moon”).
Dreamy Weather sounds like a forecast for success for Ivey. As she continues to showcase this album playing with just about every type of band around town (going from the Tosca String Quartet to Aaron Carter and Austin’s main man Bob Schneider), she will undoubtedly continue to grow as an artist and captivate audiences with the smart, thoughtful lyrics that blow the local competition out of the water. Catch her at the One World Theater with Howie Day, this Thursday, June 27th at 6pm.
-Bailey Cool