Customer Reviews

Harpoon

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I picked up a copy of this a couple of weeks ago at her CMJ show and have been waiting for today to be able to praise it. Larkin Grimm is a young psych-folk singer/songwriter from Georgia by way of Providence, Rhode Island. On Harpoon (aka "Harpoon Baptism") she accompanies her stunning, multitracked voice with mountain dulcimer and acoustic guitar on songs dealing with passion and heartbreak and exploration of the recesses of one's soul. This is a truly beautiful and powerful recording, full of light and darkness at once. An amazing debut.....

From a background that is classically "hip" - being the child of a 1960s-era commune - Larkin Grimm in the 2000s became one of the most talked-about singer/songwriters on the underground folk scene. Signed by Secret Eye - home to Spires That in the Sunset Rise's complex masterpieces Four Winds the Walker and This Is Fire, Larkin Grimm developed an equally unique but completely different form of folk music on her 2005 debut "Harpoon". Although she plays the whole record for herself, Grimm uses the studio as an instrument to create overdubs that - utterly unlike those used on conventional radio pop songs - serve to actually enhance the sound as if she was playing several different, yet intimately related tunes.

This characteristic is apparent from the opening song "Entrance", a short piece with a hypnotic, tribal sound through the harsh percussion created both the guitar and the drums. The piercing voice is a delight that has a quite mysterious effect all along. "Going Out" is simpler and really catchy, yet the vocals and percussion create an effect that is paradoxically prayerful, whilst on "Patch It Up", Grimm creates an epic drama and "Pigeon Food" is stunning in her warm vocals that express without any harshness deep emotional despair.

Fifth track "I Am Eating Your Deathly Dreams" is softer but equally sharp to the point of being eerie, yet it is remarkably soothing. Then there is the amazingly dense epic "Future Friend" on which Grimm manages to make a song perfectly out of a number of pieces out of phase, yet still weaves it into a tune of perfect longing for a new friend. "Harpoon Baptism", which serves as the title tune, is equally good and remarkably touching owing to Grimm singing a duet of remarkable contrasts, whilst "I Killed Someone" is really funny in spite of its dark subject matter and "Go Gently" has a cathedral-like atmosphere reminiscent of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Mary".

To round off a very impressive work there is the slow, sparse "One Hundred Men" with its repeated line "I want to love/Again and again", the beautifully desperate "Touch Me, Shaping Hands", which shows how much doubt Grimm really has about her romantic successes and features whistled vocals more beautiful than could be imagined and which serve to substitute perfectly for an instrumental solo, as do the wonderful "ah"s at the conclusion of the song. "White Water" returns to a softer sound but it is ambient like Linda Perhacs on "Moons and Cattails" without aping it enough to be called anything like copycatting.

All in all, "Harpoon" is a crisp, often dense piece of work that will take time to get used to. Nonetheless, its touching beauty and tribal rhythms are another winner for Secret Eye.