Martha Wainwright "Love Will Be Reborn" (2021)

Love Will Be Reborn

release date: Aug. 20, 2021

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,72]

producer: Pierre Marchand

label: Cooking Vinyl - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "Middle of the Lake" - 2. "Getting Older" - 3. "Love Will Be Reborn" (4 / 5) - 6. "Body and Soul" - 7. "Hole in My Heart" - 9. "Sometimes" - 11. "Falaise de malaise"

5th studio album by Martha Wainwright as follow-up to her 2016 album Goodnight City is with a new producer in the form of Pierre Marchand, who is known for his work with musicians within singer / songwriter and folk music, such as Sarah McLachlan, but also Kate & Anna McGarrigle (Kate is Martha's mother), Rufus Wainwright (Martha's brother), as well as Daniel Lanois and Lhasa de Sela. Nearly five years is a very long time in between releases, and Martha Wainwright has never been the one to spit out albums like others do, but here she is back with 11 of her very own compositions as she last did with Come Home to Mama in 2012. Since 2016, she has gone through a divorce from former musical partner and regular producer Brad Albetta, and she has had to reconcile with the role of a single mother of two, which may also have a significant impact on the musical drought. If nothing else, the existential challenges have been food for several of the new songs, such as the title track, "Getting Older", "Hole in My heart" and "Falais de malaise" are clear examples of.

The cover quite nicely reflects the title with Wainwright sitting as if in a waiting position, ready in her fine dress to turn towards a new love. Musically, there is no revolutionary news, but the music has generally become more subdued with several songs in the singer / songwriter style without a lot of frills in the shape of synths and other electronic equipment. It's occasionally alt-country, it's naked and honest, and the album appears to be her most complete since the more poppier I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too from 2008. She has never been shy about writing openly about her own life, about challenges with parents, family, and especially love - the broken and the new, but the songs here appear as her most mature, where self-reflection has been given more space than before, and where it mostly was an issue of pointing outwards rather than seeing inward. Also, and for once, she sounds more like herself than all possible others.

Recommended.

[ allmusic.com, Gaffa.dk 4 / 5 stars ]

Martha Wainwright "Goodnight City" (2016)

Goodnight City

release date: Nov. 11, 2016

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,46]

producer: Brad Albetta & Thomas Bartlett

label: Play It Again Sam - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "Around the Bend" - 2. "Franci" (4 / 5) (live in studio) - 3. "Traveller" (live in studio) - 4. "Look Into My Eyes" - 6. "Window" - 8. "Alexandria" - 10. "One of Us" - 12. "Francis"

4th studio album by Martha Wainwright following a full four years since her last studio album Come Home to Mama (Oct. 2012), but most recently it follows the duo-project The Wainwright Sisters and their debut Songs in the Dark from 2015, where Martha stars alongside half-sister Lucy Wainwright Roche.

Goodnight City is, as usual, produced by husband Brad Albetta, who, however, is involved for the last time as the couple should divorce in 2018. Here, Albetta shares producer credit with Thomas Bartlett, who previously participated as keyboardist on all of Wainwright's albums since the Edit Piaf album Sans Fusils, ni souliers, a Paris..." (2009). The album offers 12 tracks with a total running time at just over 45 minutes. In the past, Wainwright has been songwriter and composer on the majority of her songs, but here she's alone credited half of the tracks and as co-writer on two. Four tracks are written and composed by others, respectively by Michael Ondaatje & Thomas Bartlett ("Piano Music"), Beth Orton ("Alexandria"), Merrill Garbus ("Take the Reins"), and brother Rufus Wainwright ("Francis").

Stylistically, there is a small change to trace since her 2012 album on a collection of songs mostly native to mainstream pop / rock - and most clearly, this is more subdued in a modern singer / songwriter style with ties to folk pop. In the main, 'cause you'll find detours with more tempo and energy, such as on the slightly out of place rock-wrenching and Iggy Pop-inspired "So Down", but also on the glitch pop-arranged "Take the Reins" - both of which fall somewhat outside the big picture. On "Around the Bend" Martha imitates the role model Joni Mitchell quite a bit, although the song is actually very fine, but I guess that's just how things are with Martha Wainwright: she's fully capable of lots of good stuff and she has a great vocal, but too often she tend to over-dramatise a bit. Best track here is Wainwright's own "Franci" - not to be confused with Rufus' "Francis," which rounds out the album - but both songs were written for Martha and producer Albetta's 2014 son, Francis Valentine Albetta.

The album is a welcome return to Wainwright in her more usual style, despite resulting in a record low on album charts worldwide.

[ The Guardian, Gaffa.dk 4 / 5, 👍Under the Radar 3,5 / 5, The Independent 3 / 5 stars ]

The Wainwright Sisters "Songs in the Dark" (2015)

Songs in the Dark [debut]

release date: Nov. 13, 2015

format: digital

[album rate: 3 / 5] [2,84]

producer: Brad Albetta (recorded by)

label: Play It Again Sam - nationality: Canada / USA

Track highlights: 2. "Hobo's Lullaby" (live) - 9. "Long Lankin"

Debut album from The Wainwright Sisters counting Canadian Martha Wainwright and her younger American half-sister Lucy Wainwright Roche, daughter of their common father, Loudon Wainwright III and Suzzy Roche, American vocalist and known from the vocal group The Roches. Prior to this, in 2013 Martha Wainwright released the soundtrack album Trauma: Chansons de la Série Télé, Saison #4 - collecting the music from the entire season 4 of the Canadian edition of the TV series "Trauma", and her latest studio album is Come Home to Mama (Oct. 2012). Lucy most recently released her second solo studio album There's a Last Time for Everything (Oct. 2013) and earlier that year she released Fairytale and Myth (Mar. 2013) as a duo release with her mother Suzzy Roche.

Songs in the Dark consists of 16 classic lullabies in the form of folk and singer/songwriter compositions mainly from the 60s, but also from earlier, as well as from the following decade. These include compositions of their familial ancestry: from their father, Loudon, Martha's mother Kate McGarrigle, and tracks from Lucy's aunt, Terre Roche. In addition, you'll find songs by Paul Simon, Richard Thompson, Townes Van Zandt, Cindy Walker, Irving Berlin, as well as three traditionals often known in versions by Woody Guthrie (including track #2). The album's credit list includes several family members: Aunt Anne McGarrigle and her children, Lily and Sylvan Ranken, and Aunt Jane McGarrigle.

These are acoustic tracks held in typical vocal-based arrangements accompanied only by acoustic guitar, sometimes by violin and bass, and generally characterised by the absence of percussion and other rhythmic instruments other than the sporadic sound of bells. In general, it is a slightly one-sided album, where vocal dynamism is missing. Like the sisters Anne & Kate McGarrigle, the two half-sisters here are known for strong vocals but on the album you'll find few challenging melodies, where you miss the fine two-partness that Anne and Kate mastered, and perhaps the intention is just to collect a series of lullabies and play those as they should and should be used: to put people to sleep. At least it's a bit of a long-sufferance.

Recommended mostly for 'little ones' who are ready to sleep.

[👎 allmusic.com 4 / 5, PopMatters 3,5 / 5, Q Magazine, 👍Mojo 3 / 5 stars ]

Martha Wainwright "Come Home to Mama" (2012)

Come Home to Mama
release date: Oct. 16, 2012
format: cd (Deluxe Edition)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
producer: Yuka Honda
label: V2 - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "I Am Sorry" (live) - 2. "Can You Believe It" (4 / 5) - 4. "Proserpina" - 5. "Leave Behind" (live) - 8. "I Wanna Make an Arrest"

3rd studio album by Martha Wainwright following three years after her Piaf live album Sans fusils, ni souliers... (Nov. 2009) and 4½ years since her most recent studio album, the acclaimed I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too (May 2008). The album is produced by Japanese-American artist Yuka Honda, who previously worked in the role of producer until 2000 for a limited number of artists, which also includes the debut album Into the Sun (1998) by Honda's then-boyfriend, Sean Lennon, and Wainwright's album here was apparently recorded in Sean Lennon's home studio. Sean Lennon plays bass on two of the standard album's ten tracks, and Honda is also credited on keyboards, synths and for drum programming on several tracks. The deluxe edition contains three demo recordings as bonus material.

The album is Martha's first since the passing of her mother Kate McGarrigle at the age of 63 in 2010, and several of the songs are said to be centered on the loss.

Come Home to Mama - whose title, by the way, is a line from the track "Prosperina" - is more the musically and stylistically natural extension to her most recent 2008 studio album, making it a more pure pop / rock, folk pop, and singer / songwriter release.

Aside from the song "Can You Believe It", the album doesn't offer definite hit material, but several quite fine compositions. Her 2008 album bore certain traces of inspiration from PJ Harvey, and here I think more of an influence from Kate Bush and / or Tori Amos that intrudes - and quite generally, I think it points to Wainwright's most evident artistic weakness. All of her albums seem to contain tracks that in some way show some form of admiration or inspiration from others - whether it's her parents' folk tradition, brother Rufus's puffed-up arrangements, or other role models' idiosyncrasies. And it both results in releases pointing in several directions (apart from her 2009 Edith Piaf live album), and at the same time takes the focus away from Wainwright's very own qualities. She's undoubtedly a skilled songwriter and she has a great voice, but her greatest gift has probably been to imitate anyone, and unfortunately, she still often falls into imitation rather than cultivating her own position.

Despite challenges, I think this album is her second best so far, and it's by no means uninteresting. The selected tracks here also show what she's capable of when she sounds most like herself.

[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]

~ ~ ~

Note: A double CD tribute album Sing Me the Songs: Celebrating the Works of Kate McGarrigle in honor of Kate McGarrigle was released Jun. 2013 featuring a wide range of artists including Loudon Wainwright III, Jane and Anna McGarrigle, Sloan Wainwright (Loudon's sister), Rufus and Martha Wainwright on live recordings from four tribute concerts over three years from the first in Jun. 2010 in London, two concerts in May 2011 from New York and the last in Jun. 2012 from Toronto. The album contains 34 tracks, most of which were written and composed by Kate McGarrigle.

Martha Wainwright "Sans fusils, ni souliers, à Paris..." (2009)

Sans fusils, ni souliers, à Paris... (live)
release date: Nov. 24, 2009
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Hal Willner
label: V2 - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "La foule" - 4. "L'accordéoniste"

3rd album by Martha Wainwrigth, where the full title is Sans fusils, ni souliers, à Paris: Martha Wainwright's Piaf Record following the acclaimed I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too (May 2008). The album is not the expected new studio album. Instead, it's the live recordings of three concerts from mid-June 2009 at Dixon Place Theatre, New York, thus not what the title could imply recorded in Paris, France. The album title is with reference to the lyrics of "Les Grognards". All songs are Wainwright covers of familiar Edith Piaf songs and it's basically a tribute album.

It's indisputable that Wainwright is a most talented vocalist with a large repertoire and register, and as a French-Canadian she may possess a natural bond with French culture and traditions, and although she is highly capable as a singer, I just don't think she is up to the task particularly convincing on this arena. Wainwright is known for mastering contrasts between the emotionally vulnerable and the more expressively devilish, and yet here her voice seems to lack an emotional attuned dimension that you find in Piaf's versions, but also in songs performed by Mireille Mathieu, who have given most of these songs a different and personal quality.

It's not an unambiguously bad album, where Wainwright misses the mark - it's only more so that others have done it better.

[ Sunday Tribune 3 / 5, The Times, The Guardian 4 / 5 stars ]

Martha Wainwright "I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too" (2008)

I Know You're Married but I've Got Feelings Too
release date: May 12, 2008
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,82]
producer: Brad Albetta; Martin Terefe
label: Cooperative Music - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "Bleeding All Over You" (4 / 5) - 2. "You Cheated Me" (4,5 / 5) - 4. "Comin' Tonight" (4 / 5) (live) - 6. "Hearts Club Band" (live) - 9. "The George Song" - 11. "Jimi" (live)

2nd studio album by Martha Wainwright follows three years after her self-titled full-length debut from 2005. The album is mainly produced by her husband Brad Albetta, who is behind six of the album's thirteen tracks - he and Martha married in 2007. Martin Terefe has produced four tracks, and in addition Tore Johansson has produced two, and Kate McGarrigle is the producer a single track. Jeff Trott is co-producer on one, and the duo Ger McDonnell and Mike Hedges are also credited as co-producers on one track.

The music is folk and singer / songwriter, but the album here is cut significantly more like a contemporary folk pop album with stress on pop. The compositions are written by Wainwright, and a single track "Jimi" is taken from the '99 ep Martha Wainwright, but here in a rearranged version. Where the debut was stylistically in keeping with an American folk tradition, this one shows a new side to Martha Wainwright stepping more in the direction of brother Rufus Wainswright's more contemporary folk pop and chamber pop releases with distance to father, Loudon Wainwright III and mother Kate McGarrigle's tradition of more simple and guitar-based folk.

The album was my first encounter with Martha's music, and I first adored the fine and much played "You Cheated Me" on the radio without having in any way cultivated other tracks from the album. When I finally listened to the whole album, it was a rather positive experience, and my first thoughts were that it was a good album with several fine tracks. At first it was the first two tracks that stood out the strongest, but gradually I listened more attentively to other tracks, and then it was one of those rare occasions when it dawns on you that you have come across a jewel. And yes, she could be inspired by a certain Polly Jean Harvey, and I had the same experience when I discovered her album Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000). Likewise, this is one of those albums that just seems to grow as you listen to it. It's a bit magical when you listen to these kinds of releases that come so rare. You stumble upon one or two tracks and after a while it's as if other tracks rise up, as if with a raised finger saying : "Hey there, I'm also here, Okay!", and finally, you end up loving the whole package.

The album garnered positive reviews and became Martha Wainwright's commercial breakthrough with a top-10 position at No. #6 on the Canadian Albums Chart, and it generally performed well in several other countries worldwide. Having released two more studio albums through 2018, this one remains her best-selling album.

However, my enthusiasm for the album cooled a little over time. I still consider it better than good, but after a while it sort of lost my interest - as less impressive. Perhaps there is too much of the same going on here - musically and lyrically. In a way, it's a bit the same way I've experienced albums by brother Rufus. When you haven't lsitened to any of them, it's easy to be impressed by that brilliant control over your own voice register they both possess and after some time you (perhaps) discover how little progression the musical universe offers. Make no mistake, I still like both of their music, and especially this very album! I just ended up where it has to be taken in smaller doses. It's still a highly recommended album. And if you haven't been there: do yourself a favour and check this one out!

[ allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, The Observer, The Guardian 4 / 5 stars ]

Martha Wainwright "Martha Wainwright" (2005)

Martha Wainwright [debut]
release date: Apr. 12, 2005
format: cd (Special Edition) / vinyl (2025 RM) (clear vinyl)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]
producer: Brad Albetta, Martha Wainwright
label: Drowned In Sound Recordings - nationality: Canada

Track highlights: 1. "Far Away" - 2. "Factory" - 5. "Ball & Chain" - 6. "Don't Forget" - 7. "This Life" - 8. "When The Day Is Short" - 9. "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole" (live 2014) (live 2018) - 14. "Bring Back My Heart"

Studio album debut by Martha Wainwright - or: her official debut. In 1997 she made a 10-track cassette, which is not usually counted among her regular studio albums as it's a limited release of songs she recorded from 1994 to '97, which also included track #6. Furthermore, Martha Wainwright follows a couple of ep releases, the latest of which is the 4-track ep Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole (Jan. 2005), where the title track is included here. Several tracks are taken from her first two EP releases: the title track is from Factory (1999) and the two tracks "G.P.T" and "Don't Forget" are from the ep Martha Wainwright (1999), and the latter is also on her '97 -cartridge. Thus, her debut album contains four out of thirteen tracks from previous releases.

The music is kept in a traditional folk and singer / songwriter style and is thus quite close to the musical characteristics of her parents. Martha is the daughter of folk and singer/songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and folk vocalist Kate McGarrigle. Older brother Rufus is perhaps the family's best-known voice.

The album was well received, but did not garner much commercial acclaim. In turn, Martha Wainwright was nominated New Artist of the Year 2006 at the Juno Award.

Track #9 "B.M.F.A." is Martha's greeting to her father...

Martha writes and sings in an American singer / songwriter tradition where, in addition to her parents, you're reminded of Emmylou Harris and especially Joni Mitchell.

It's a good and solid album that is mostly quite promising, as it contains some really good tracks and then overall perhaps isn't super original but still possess enough magic not be overlooked.

[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5 stars ]