Amelia Issue #36

A Long, Lovely List of Repairs (Slow Down)

By Anne C. Johnson
Published: August 1st, 2008 | 11:03am

Amelia has all the familiar singer-songwriter trappings; beautiful-voiced female singer, a stripped-down sound, and the requisite tales of heartbreak and woe. This time, however, the vocals are coming from the woman, Teisha Helgerson, sitting behind the drum kit. There are a total of four musicians lurking behind this moniker and for their third studio album, Portland’s Amelia subtly and carefully expand the frontiers of the folk universe.

The album begins slightly askew with “Enemigo,” which is sung entirely in Spanish, lending a Latin-vibe to their overall jazzy — yet folky — sound. For Amelia, the same old clichés just won’t do; it's Elvis Costello that Helgerson sings of and not the King on “Farewell." The group has an arsenal of musical instruments — glockenspiel, timpani, bass clarinet, even a Coke bottle — at their disposal that the musicians make superb use of in arrangements as delicate and intricate as the needlework they sing of. Sadly, despite all of the fine instrumentation and some terrific songs (the heart-wrenching “After You,” and the instrumental “Thick as Thieves”), there's a certain sameness in tone to this Long, Lovely List of Repairs that causes it to feel slightly overlong.

These days, contemporary music is stuck in a rut so deep that many listeners are exploring the various circuits of electronic music. But the folk genre, it seems, will always stubbornly continue to exist; and outfits like Amelia offer solid proof for why there will always be an audience for American folk music and its various modern incarnations. Not to mention, it is very refreshing to hear musicians playing something other than a laptop.