Lost in Suzanne Vallie's Moonshiner Springs
"Sometimes between the light and the rain, some souls remain"
In the liner notes that accompany Moonshiner Springs, the new album from Suzanne Vallie, the South Dakotan songwriter talks of the fun that was not only mustered but prioritised during its creation. "I did all that pleased me while recording my album," Vallie writes. "It was late summer with good weather. We had so much fun recording. Driving out to the river to swim. Getting sand in the car. All the best stuff."
It feels notable to parade that notion because it's hard to see how Moonshiner Springs could have been conjured without it. Housed within its nine songs is a freedom that can only come from such an impulse, such a dedication to joy. Such moments are also key to reflection; these moments of delight allow the light to fall upon moments of loss, heartache, detachment in ways that help us process them with different shades.
Such sentiments run right through the heart of the beautiful songs that make-up Moonshiner Springs. Vallie made the album with Carly Bond – aka Meerna – who flew to Dakota to LA with a "trunk" of recording equipment, to soak up this joy alongside each other and build the album around it. Mat Davison of Twain adds notable inflections of pedal steel guitar, violin, and voice, but Vallie is always front-and-centre, her voice rich with life whether it's pouring forward with brightness or held in shadowy place.
One of the genre tags on the album's Bandcamp page is 'dream country' and it's a true reflection, the songs twisting and unraveling with a country sense of spirit, but always also seeming to hold something back or, perhaps, create a haziness that pulls you out of your own world and into the colours of this new one.
The title-track is gorgeous and swooning, led by a wandering violin and a slightly distant vocal, the dense lyrics vivid enough to jot down and pull apart: "Sometimes between the light and the rain, some souls remain" Vallie sings. Elsewhere, 'The Bride' showcases the album's more sprightly side, a chugging-rush of jaunty instrumentation and a simmering undercurrent of synths that bring the whole thing together.
It's the meandering finale, however, that ribbon-bows the album into something truly special. A patient and captivating seven-and-half-minutes, it rolls on and on, voice and violin, a softly strummed guitar, numerous mentions of water in the sprawling lyrics that mirror the song's form as it drifts like a slow-moving river, covering ground and miles and years, slowly departing to leave your day – to leave you, honestly – softly changed by what's come before.
Moonshiner Springs is out now
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