#found light

Veirs’ songs have always decanted fresh, pristine melodies into artful containers. Simple and unruffled on the surface, they seethe with complex undercurrents. With Found Light, the surface is a bit more disturbed than usual. A few of these songs, including both singles (“Seaside Haiku” and “Winter Windows”), slip grit and violence and a bit of rock energy in their lovely interstices. Others, notably “Sword Song,” are heartbreakingly spare, just a few widely spaced guitar chords to frame them. 

There are some really wonderful musical touches in these songs. “Autumn Song,” juxtaposes translucent layers of vocals one on top of the other, so that Veirs sings a kind of round with herself. It sounds utterly natural, as if she’s humming to herself, and yet rather complex. In “Naked Hymn,” a mournful saxophone floats effortlessly over a percussive chorus (“Touch has a memory/touch has a memory”), finding calm in solitary contemplation. “Signal” embeds a rough-housing drumbeat into its dream-y textures, grounding delicate tendrils of melody, but softly. 

You get the sense of Veirs working to contain especially strong emotional content within the breezy, sophisticated contours of her music—and mostly succeeding. This is not one of those break-up albums that leaves you bruised and bleeding, and indeed, there’s a bit of hope in the way the songs tilt. Croons Veirs, “Death is about the ending and also the beginning/black flag with a white rose, I’m waving in a cold wind/I’m folding each hour in sun and showers/I’m turning my sword into a flower.” With Found Light, she has, indeed, made a lovely garden out of her troubles.