EXTERIOR: DESERT -- NIGHT. The moon is full, casting just enough light to reveal the silhouette of a figure on a galloping horse. TIGHT SHOT on the traveller's face -- a woman whose robes billow behind her. Shadows conceal all but her burning eyes, outlined with koal. She urges her horse to greater speed, whispering encouragement. As she dwindles in the distance, the music swells.
It's a hazy tangle of sounds, building rhythms of synthesizer, percussion and carefully chosen guitar wails. A lugubrious, quite lovely female voice tells a timeless story that rouses images of ruins and midnight ritual. Drums pound an ominous beat to the croon of an irresistible siren's song: "The visions inside her remind her of patterns/ Writ on her heart long ago." It's a spell conjured up in the dead of night, "Aurelia," the opening track of Kendra Smith's new album.
"Five Ways of Disappearing" is the singer/songwriter's first solo album for iconoclastic indie label 4AD. Each song on the lush disk evokes images of another time, another place, a purer way of being human. All of which makes perfect sense given Smith's track record of fleeing the moment she feels her art taking a backseat to anything reeking of the mundane.
CUT TO: A dark-haired young woman in the early '80s; she plays bass in a neo-psychedelic band called The Dream Syndicate until leaving the group because "the band as a 'thing' was taking precedence over [her] need to develop artistically."
QUICK CUT TO: Smith's collaboration with ex-Rain Parade songwriter David Roback; they release two LPs under the name Opal.
CUT TO: Smith's departure from the group in mid-tour; she encourages Roback to contact singer Hope Sandoval to take her place as singer. He does, and changes the name of the band to Mazzy Star; Smith retreats from the music industry.
FAST FORWARD TO: Recent past. Smith lives simply in Northern California, raising her own organic food and professing no interest in songwriting. A few years later, she finds an old pump organ in a store and begins writing songs again.
CUT TO: The present. "Five Ways of Disappearing" shimmers with moody virtuosity. The mideastern strains of the opening to "Bohemian Zebulon" are almost a holy chant, before shifting into a sort of German cabaret song, with Smith urging, "Welcome my friends to the Valley of the Morning Sun/ Set up your tents/ Let all your banners fly." Throughout the album, Smith showcases her well-honed voice and a knack for evocative imagery; she's able to alternate in tone and style -- sounding here a bit like Marianne Faithfull, there a touch of Sheila Chandra, then a smidge of Nico -- depending on her mood.
But the ambience here isn't all earnest artiness: The honky-tonky "Maggots" is a charming little ditty with the unlikely refrain: "Maggots, maggots, what do you do?/ Maggots, maggots, do do doo." And Smith makes the closing track -- a cover of Richard and Mimi Farina's "Bold Marauder" -- downright spooky, with a shifting refrain, "It's high ho hey! I am the bold marauder ... I am the white destroyer .. and death will be your darling, and fear will be our name." CUT TO: DESERT -- DAY. The tired horse plods on, unable to gallop in the heat of the shimmering sun. A shout rings out from the traveller. The camera pans in as she urges the steed toward the spot of color in the distance -- an oasis.
EXTREME CLOSE UP on her smudged face, lit by a brilliant smile as she approaches the sanctuary surrounding a cool blue pool. She is singing.
FADE TO BLACK.
By Julene Snyder