The legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner is often quoted as saying “Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances”. It might seem odd to begin a music review with an acting aphorism (although, in his youth, Meisner studied to become a concert pianist). But, Dannie-Lu Carr – an exponent of Meisner’s teachings – has taken the essence of this artistic philosophy and placed it at the heart of her brilliant new album, Chunky Bitty Mermaid.
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The album follows the story of an algae covered mermaid confronting identity, the climate emergency and what it means to live in a world filled with sirens, face masks and the looming presence of an unnameable tyranny. The folk-myth of the mermaid allows Carr to explore ideas of loss, the environment, sexuality and emancipation. It also allows her to show us the world we’ve normalised for what it is truthfully is – fucked up and in dire need of love and renewal.
Throughout Carr channels the smoky vocals of Marianne Faithfull, the playful arrangements and organic rhythms of Pascale Comelade and the punky brass of Imelda May but, embodying the spirit of Meisner, this journey is uniquely, authentically her own.
The opening track, Storm in a Teacup, which riffs on the media’s commodification of war is a punk tornado of baritone sax, driving bass and burnt to a crisp guitar that’s reminiscent of mid-era Rolling Stones being schooled by Poly Styrene.
The rest of the album features an abundance of down and dirty punk anthems. Avoidance features an intro that brilliantly manages to simultaneously tip its hat to both The Stranglers and Destiny’s Child. Grumpy Cows is a shameless celebration and affirmation of women – as both goddesses and demons.
However, it’s when Chunky Bitty Mermaid slows and enters a meditative and introspective space that you begin to feel that you’re listening to something very special.
In particular, on tracks such as Poison Fin, an elegy for pollution and environmental degradation which begins as an elegant and restrained ballad, but blooms into a glorious reverb drenched coda.
On SOS, Carr seethes with injustice and indignation at ‘the government who frames every single one of us for their dark and deplorable deeds’ over a darkly lush sound world of saxophone harmonics, guitar atmospheres and improvised drums.
Perhaps the heart of the album, its emotional centrepiece, is Savage Winds. A delicately strange waltz enveloped in mystery and pathos. It’s a song that beautifully marries complexity and simplicity in both arrangement and imagery – rich with dreamscapes of the sea and the hellscapes of modern life. Carr acknowledges the ocean as the bringer of life, but also terror, whose power and foreboding threatens to overwhelm us – literally and metaphorically. Ultimately, in order to learn the truth, for the enigma and promise of the sea – of existence – to be revealed, Carr urges us to return to Meisner’s essential message: “This Chunky Bitty Maid can charm you till the end, but you have to learn honesty. Yes, courage my friend”.
