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Although now based back home in California after several years in Nashville, Brigitte DeMeyer’s Seeker is still steeped in swampy Southern blues and soul influences. For this latest outing, DeMeyer has enlisted Jano Rix from The Woods Brothers as producer and co-writer, as well as contributing piano, drums and shuitar (a guitar modified for percussion). Things kick off with All The Blue, featuring Viktor Krauss’s upright bass and pedal steel from  JP Ruggieri, its slow burn, moody mode is evocative of hot Southern afternoons weaving in echoes of Victoria Williams and Bobbie Gentry, the latter also colouring, the slinky jazz-flavoured punningly titled Cat Man Do about a cool dude “With his particular own hepscat brew” but desperately lonely, which,  with Kris Donegan on acoustic guitar, plays like a laid back Little Feat groove.

By contrast, Bonnie Raitt’s more smouldering side would seem to be a touchstone elsewhere, as on the equally feline funkiness of Salt Of The Earth’s search for connection (“Wanna find me a gang o’ trust/One for all and all for bust”), where she shares vocals with Oliver Woods against a bluesy organ backdrop, or the late night blues bar trio vibe of Ain’t No Mister, a man done me wrong number you could easily imagine Dinah Washington wrapping round her finger.

Set to a ticking percussion beat, reflecting her return to California, the title track is a more acoustic backwoods gospel shuffle with Chris Woods on guitar and Oliver on tremolo while, set musically apart from the other tracks, Wishbone immerses in far more of an old school gospel county approach with brushed drums, slide guitar and a train time rhythm, a song about appreciating the little things written while laid up with a broken ankle.

Overall, though, the album soaks itself into a molasses thick and sweet blues and soul frame of mind, stroking out ruminative piano jazz notes on the protest number Calamity Gone (“All the greedin’ and the evil/Got you barking real good like a dog in the yard”) or summoning the spirit of New Orleans’s seductive allure on Louisiana with its simple piano and electric guitar churchy feel.

The remaining two cuts both nod to family, the stripped-back Already In with its strummed acoustic and mellotron a simple love song for her husband (“You are the ember/You are the stoke/You are the reason/You are the oak”) while the piano-based, gospel blues album closer, Roots and Wings and Bones, is dedicated to her son and mothers who sacrifice for their children’s wellbeing.  Despite being conceived during a period of personal upheaval, Seeker glows with a redemptive spirit and sense of optimism for the life ahead. It marks a new chapter in her musical journey, and on this evidence, it’s going to be quite a page-turner.

Tracks:  
01. All the Blue
02. Cat Man Do
03. Salt of the Earth
04. Louisiana
05. Calamity Gone
06. Already In
07. Ain't No Mister
08. Wishbone
09. Seeker
10. Roots and Wings and Bones

Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7NGUGz9B-E&t=1s