Neutral Milk Hotel

In the Airplane Over the Sea

(Merge Records, 1998)

In my early 20s I worked at a bookstore in NYC and played this album on repeat. There’s something so captivating about Jeff Mangum’s voice; it sounds like a scratchy telephone call from the past. The writing is romantic and slightly creepy, not unlike a good Hans Christian Andersen story. Each song is its own folktale spun from the centre of a melodic tornado. The production is so inventive, especially the use of distortion and the arrangements are really unique (the saw!)… The lyrics are poetic and mysterious and sad but the music is jubilant – I’m often drawn to this contrast in music and art in general.

Ani DiFranco

Not a Pretty Girl

(Righteous Babe Records, 1995)

I’ll never forget hearing Ani DiFranco’s songs for the first time. My friend Alicia played me a mixtape on the bus riding back from a soccer game and it blew my 16-year-old mind. I’d never heard anything like it before, it was so dangerous and intimate. Her guitar playing is insanely percussive and her lyrics are playful and challenging. More than anything, I love her ideas. The mixtape spanned serval albums but I am especially fond of this one, it has ‘32 Flavors’ on it, which is forever quoted under my senior yearbook photo. I fell in love with New York because of her songs and even though I’d never been there, I decided that’s where one should move to pursue songwriting.

Hem

Rabbit Songs

(Hem, 2000)

This album would be on my list even if I didn’t know and love the people in Hem. My first touring experiences were singing backing vocals and playing glockenspiel with this Brooklyn-based orchestral roots band that sometimes expands to 12 or more people on stage (guitars, mandolin, harp, pedal steel, strings). Rabbit Songs is their debut and every single song on it is stunning. Sally’s voice kills me and Dan, Gary, Steve & co come together to make timeless music. I return to this one often on roadtrips, it’s pastoral and expansive in a [Aaron] Copland way. It makes my heart sing. I feel so lucky that I got to cut my teeth playing these songs live and later record with Hem on several of their other albums.

Peggy Seeger

Different Therefore Equal

(Folkways Records, 1979)

I only recently discovered Peggy Seeger’s music when I started researching feminist folk songs for my latest project The Liberated Woman’s Songbook. Different Therefore Equal includes one her best known songs, ‘I’m Gonna Be an Engineer’, a cautionary tale of the plight of female ambition. There is something Shakespearian about Seeger’s writing, especially [on] ‘Engineer’ and ‘What Do You Do All Day?’, both quite epic and theatrical… Seeger’s messages advocating for equality and solidarity among women are so strong that I nearly missed out on her flawless banjo and guitar playing the first few listens. She’s a beast.

Lucinda Williams

Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

(Mercury, 1998)

Lucinda Williams is one of my all-time favourite writers and this is such a perfect record, every single song holds its weight. I keep returning to this album… I age but it never seems to. I first heard this on a trip to Memphis with some friends when I was in college, sitting in the backseat. Her lyrical style reminds me a little of Flannery O’Connor: southern Gothic roots rock. She paints such vivid scenes: ‘smell of coffee / eggs and bacon / car wheels on a gravel road’. And her characters feel so real: ‘When I get back this room better be picked-up / car wheels on a gravel road’. Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy nailed the production on this record. The band is really tight and every note feels like part of the fabric of the song, serving the storytelling and the vibe.