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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Mary Bue: Wanderlust
Wednesday 04 April @ 13:42:50 |
  by NATHAN DEAN
Twenty-five-year-old Mary Bue likes the feel of the earth moving under her feet. Born in Princeton, Minn., Bue's been a college student in Duluth, a psychiatric researcher in Rhode Island prisons and an artist in residence living off grant money in the Florida Everglades (not exactly your typical local musician back story). This fall, Bue's whirlwind journey deposited her in the Twin Cities for the first time, and the stellar quality of her forthcoming release Boat with No Oars has me hoping she's lost the traveling bug for good.
"I get a lot of inspiration from the places I go and the people I meet," says Bue. "I wrote some of the songs for this album on the Greek Island of Santorini and a lot of them while I was still living in Rhode Island."
Even one cursory listen to the sprawling and ambitious Boat with No Oars proves that Rhode Island's loss is undoubtedly the Twin Cities' gain. A whopping 15 tracks and over an hour in length, Bue's third album is boldly multidimensional, at times sounding like the work of three different women. The opening track ("Ain't Nobody") introduces a melancholic soft-pop chanteuse with a mellow and memorable twang to her voice. The next track ("Not Turning Back") represents an abrupt about-face, with Bue amping up the twang and shifting her mood from melancholic to defiant, the placid piano-plunking of her previous number banished in favor of forceful, minor key acoustic guitar strums and a foreboding bass line. The next number ("Salt and Pepper") further complicates the issue of pinning Bue down, bringing back the piano but favoring a slinky rhythm and sultry cooing vocals.
Equal parts Lucinda Williams, Tori Amos and Carole King, Bue has managed to make a record of myriad moods and styles that still coheres, thanks to a consistent instrumental palette (piano, bass, drums, acoustic and electric guitars and the occasional utility player on fiddle, sitar or mandolin) and uniformly tight performances from her band.
"I wanted to do something that was a little more varied than my previous releases," says Bue, whose two prior albums--one of which was primarily recorded by Low's Alan Sparhawk--were largely piano and voice affairs. "The last few years I've been experimenting and trying to get away from the melancholy vibe I had been doing for so many years; just trying to make songs that were a little more enlivening. I have probably enough songs at this point for three more records. A few of those songs are about six years old, but I felt like I needed to give them a fair chance. I just picked the strongest set of songs that I had and didn't really worry about how similar or different they were from each other."
 Bue appears to make the switch from solo pianist to confident band leader with relative ease on Boat with No Oars, but when pressed, she readily admits the task was more painstaking than it sounds. "I spent about a year and a half making the record and a lot of that time was just getting the sound in my head to become reality, making it richer and fuller, trying out different arrangements. Everyone involved was great; I would have a bunch of people involved doing multiple takes on guitar, mandolin, fiddle, just doodling over the entire song. Then during mixing, Tom Herbers and I would just spend hours and hours poring over it and cutting things out, picking the little parts where it was the perfect complement to the song."
This work-intensive method yielded solid results for Bue, as even in the album's most lavish moments, such as the country-pop waltz "Baby I Love You," the large arrangements sound resplendent rather than garish, with every note working in service of the song.
Bue appears poised to make a significant splash on the Twin Cities music scene with the release of Boat with No Oars, but she's intentionally laid low and played few shows in the area since her arrival, preferring to introduce herself to audiences once her new album hits shelves. "I have been kind of hiding out to get ready for this record," says Bue, who will immediately hit the road for an extensive West Coast tour after her release gig here in town. "I really don't want to over-saturate the market here. In Duluth I played a couple of times a week, I paid the rent doing it, but I quickly learned there are only so many people that want to see you two times a week."
The real question on Twin City music fans' tongues should be whether Bue and her peripatetic ways will keep her in town long enough for anyone to get used to seeing her name on area concert bills.
"I'm digging the Twin Cities right now," says a reassuring Bue as our conversation comes to an end. "I get the wanderlust pretty bad every now and again and feel like moving, but right now I think I'll stick around a little bit and just see what happens. I've already met a lot of great people and feel like there's a great music community here. I think I'll stick around for another year or two at least." You heard it folks: a year or two. Catch Bue while you can. ||
Mary Bue and her band play the CD release show for Boat with No Oars on Sat., Apr. 7 at the Acadia Café with Jeremy Messersmith and Ghost in the Water. 9 p.m. $6. 18+. 1931 Nicollet Ave. S., Mpls. For further information on Mary Bue, check out her official website at marybue.com.
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