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Sing Out Magazine Review of The Geography of Light
September 17th, 2008
Carrie Newcomer's fierce power of observation, deep trust in the goodness and mystery at the heart of our world and unmistakable leonine alto voice come together gorgeously on her eleventh album, The Geography of Light. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Each of the sons here is a captured moment of ordinary experience made vibrant by the unexpected wonder that Carrie feels for the things that captivate her, and made transcendent by her ability to find and express the hidden lessons in those things with a musical poetry of mystery and unfolding. In this, she is a true impressionist of emotion. By and large, with the exception of the lively Cajun two-step "One Woman and a Shove." the music is powerful but simple, drawing on the contemporary singer-songwriter style with roots in Americana, much in keeping with Carrie's southern Indiana home. That simple music allows the poetry to shine through.
The theme of this album is broadly what Carrie calls "the liminal place”: the often overlooked and interstice between one thing and another. For example, in the haunting “there is a Tree,” mediation on a marriage, Carrie laments, “I am the fool whose life’s been spent/Between what is said and what is meant.” “Clean Edge of Change,” ponders the moment between holding and letting go, describing that moment of change unforgettably. Similarly,
Map of Shadows” considers the twilit moment between day and night, “Two Toast” the silence between sounds, and “Lazarus” our small span of lie in between the mystery from which we come the mystery to which we go. One of the most beautiful songs on the album is “Where You Been.” Which takes off from Sojourners founder Jim Wallis’ observation that “we are the prophets we’ve been waiting for.” It finds the holy in the acts of everyday kindness shared by “all us crazy holy hungry ones who still believe in something better.”
Inspired by a wide palette of thinkers from Jim Wallis to Midwest writer Scott Russell Sanders to the Jungian expert James Hollis, The Geography of Light offers a theology of basic human truths and ordinary observations as metaphors for unexpected mystery. Highly recommended.