Sunny War, With the Sun. ORG Music ORGM-1041, LP $15.89 at Amazon.com.
I have this really bad habit of judging albums by their covers. Something gets sent to me in the mail, I glance at it, maybe open it up and look at the liner notes and then I place it in the rotation according to what I think it might be.
I've been getting quite a few spectacular titles from ORG Music lately, and many of them have been reissues, classics that haven't been so much remastered as revived, saved from oblivion. I took one look at the cover of Sunny War's new album With the Sun, and I instantly thought it was another re-release from the '70s. That black-and-white photo of Ms. War, set in a seemingly urban landscape, suggested to me that this might be soul, R&B, something to reinforce that angry look in her eyes, a sideways glance that says "Don't even think about messing with me. You don't know the day I've had." Then I caught one of the pull quotes from the sticker on the cellophane which proclaimed this album to be "an absolute triumph of folk-punk." Folk-punk? Seems like I haven't heard that phrase since Exene Cervenka and Henry Rollins used to have poetry readings at the Anti-Club on Sunset Boulevard in the '80s.
I had to open it up and have a listen, right then and there. It wasn't soul, and it wasn't rhythm and blues. It wasn't really folk-punk, whatever that means in 2018. It was folk, however, gentle and beautiful acoustic songs that reminded me of Nick Drake of all people. I wasn't expecting that, but once I got into the groove I started listening to the lyrics because that might hold the key to the claims of a punk aesthetic.
I didn't quite find it. War's lyrics are primarily about the usual—love, relationships, finding your purpose in today's world—but she's starkly intelligent about the way she approaches these subjects. She's one of those songwriters, like Lucinda Williams, who can communicate so many ideas with just a few words. On the album's opener, "If It Wasn't Broken," War asks "How d'ya know you have a heart if it wasn't broken?" The song is about a relationship of hers that had just ended, and there's such a succinct quality to this statement that your mind starts to drift with the idea and the singular grace that surrounds it. There's nothing punk about that sentiment.
War's voice also prompts an obvious comparison to Tracy Chapman, one I'm reluctant to make because it's a little too on-the-nose and because I've never been a fan. Maybe Joan Armatrading is a better match. War, who was born Sydney Ward, claims both Chapman and Armatrading as influences, but I feel there's more of a kinship to the latter's sensitivity to the musical side, a greater sophistication to the songwriting. There's that same thickness in the back of Sunny War's throat, just like those other two, a depth that implies a great deal of strength, not to mention an outer shell that needs to be cracked so we can have empathy for what the singer has experienced. Perhaps that comes from an unsettled life that includes what she calls a nomadic childhood that led to her performing on the streets of Venice beach—where she was discovered.
Sunny War is not stingy with the instrumentation, and that's perhaps the hidden potency of With the Sun. This is not another songwriter-with-a-guitar folk album but a recording that features a variety of backing musicians who constantly rotate so there's always something intriguing in the song to pull you in closer. Violins, violas and cellos, courtesy of Jules Pusch, Aniela Marie Perry and Nikita Sorokin, float in and out of these songs with a sweetness and depth that complement the sincerity in War's voice. The guitar work here is stunning as well—War has a distinct clawhammer picking style on her acoustic guitar that she says she developed straight from the first song she learned to play—the Beatles' "Blackbird." Milo Gonzalez takes the lead strumming chores with a mix of jazz, twang, and slide styles that helps to propel this album into one of the most distinctive pop recordings of recent years.
Finally, a little love must be delivered to ORG for the consistently high quality of their recent LP pressings. We're talking ghost-quiet here, a quality of pressing you don't usually find in a $16 record. I've just received many more albums from ORG in the last couple of weeks—the reissues of Hank Jones' Arigato, Dave Brubeck's Time In, Roland Hanna's Perugia and Les Paul and His Trio's After You've Gone, and each one is a sonic treasure in its own way.
With the Sun, however, is the lone modern recording, which means it's free of those historical artifacts that prevent a recording from sounding truly and deeply realistic. Sunny War's voice, her guitar and all that glorious accompaniment is delivered with a full, rich and gorgeous sound that makes this album one of the biggest surprises of 2018, a timeless folk album that you'll keep playing for years.
