No Better Time

For her fourth solo album, West Coast singer/songwriter Kacey Johansing headed to the studio with co-producer Tim Ramsey, whose resume includes such well-admired indie folk acts as Vetiver, Fruit Bats, and Tall Tales & the Silver Lining. The resulting No Better Time sees the songwriters searching, 1970s-inflected songs fleshed out with performances by Tall Tales Trevor Beld-Jimenez as well as frequent Devendra Banhart bassist Todd Dahlhoff and guitarist/violinist Amir Yaghmai (Julian Casablancas & the Voidz). These contributors give some indication of the warm, dreamy guitar (and occasionally piano) textures to come, but likely not of the consistently beguiling, lyrical vocal melodies they serve to heighten. Its a poignant, bittersweet set, peppered with track titles like Fall Backwards, Even a Lot Feels Like Nothing, and I Try alongside more forward-looking sentiments. Make Love sets the stage with winding lead guitar and vocal countermelodies, as a driving rhythm section gradually pushes the gentle song into more assertive territory. It ends on a rich, extended chord made up of the echo of various instruments. Reverb and broken chords are a regular occurrence here, with tracks like Feels Like Going Home and the steel guitar-inflected Not Only One never seeming to quite reach a final musical or narrative destination. The funkier I Try (Tried to keep something that wasnt mine), with its bouncier groove, shimmery keyboard, and jazzy backing vocals still sounds steeped in longing, as does the brisker, 80s pop-evoking No Better Time, even as lyrics try to let go of the past. Throughout No Better Time, hopeful narratives are both haunted by experience and uplifted by expressive melodies that will stay with listeners after the album ends. ~ Marcy Donelson