After a couple of inspired collaborative pairings -- first with drummer
Jim White, then with fellow guitarist
William Tyler --
Marisa Anderson returns to solo work on the ambling and spacious
Still, Here. As versatile a foil as she is, especially with such like-minded explorers as
White and
Tyler, there is something special about
Anderson's solo releases which are generally captured entirely alone in her Portland studio. Like many gifted players so attuned to their chosen instrument, she uses the guitar as a medium for capturing ephemeral thoughts and sorting out the information of her inner and outer realities. As she describes her process, "I don't get ideas and then turn to the guitar, rather I turn to the guitar to find out what my ideas are." Much like her last solo album, 2018's
Cloud Corner,
Still, Here plays like the soundtrack to a long, solitary walk. At turns dusty, humid, hilly, narrow, and gaping, it is sensory music for wayfinding and idea catching.
Anderson's palette is ambient in presentation, but organic in nature as she pairs a variety of guitars -- dry, dead-strung acoustic, muted classical, dark-toned electric -- with pepperings of acoustic and electric pianos. The pensive "In Dark Water," with its rugged slide notes and background drone suggest coming storms over a wide landscape while the lonesome "Night Air" feels like a melancholic witching-hour lullaby. There are softer moments, too, like the hopeful fingerpicked figures and glowing Wurlitzer melodies of "The Crack Where the Light Gets In" and her sweetly rolling take on the traditional "Beat the Drum Slowly" which closes out the eight-song set.
Anderson's gift is less about her technical virtuosity, than in her ability to contain complex moods and emotions in even the sparest of parts. Aptly titled with its comma-assisted double meaning,
Still, Here is indeed a meditation on both resilience and stillness of the mind. ~ Timothy Monger
