Art Recommendation: "Deeper Well," The Newest Album By Kacey Musgraves
Kacey Musgraves new album Deeper Well is very worth a listen as soon as you get a moment to put it on. The album is an introspective reaction to divorce, and Musgraves’s personal is universal.
The musical aesthetic is visualized on the album’s cover art, featuring Musgraves staring into your soul in a field of green before a forest holding a red flower she’s offering to you with her hair blowing in the wind. Her facial expression has a Mona Lisa quality, and its asymmetry will keep the neurologists arguing whether the smile is genuine.
The album title’s font has, like the music, a blend of contemporary and environmental folk 70’s aesthetic. The limited edition cover has a similar field-and-trees setting with Musgraves in an almost fetal position lying in the grass naked.
The woodsy scenes on both covers prime you not to be surprised to find an anthemic pagan song called “Heart of the Woods” in the middle with a shimmering guitar strumming as she calls out the nature in our human nature.
Throughout all the songs Musgraves’s lyrics are earnest and cool in their country-rooted, guitar-accompanied, folk pop crooning. The lyrics can at times be simplistic, but they have a maturity and charisma following Musgraves’s victories and trials of confidence in her recent mental and spiritual recentering of herself.
The instrumentation can be moddle in these songs, and there are plenty of ethereal effects to both the guitar and her voice that aren’t the most sonically complex things you’ll hear this week, but they’re hum-along-able and emotionally resonating in ways that make this album good for both focused listening and background for your multitasking — I’ve had it in rotation quite a bit while writing the last couple days.
However, it’s Musgraves’s poetry that really impresses on this album. I’ve made trips to lyric sites for each song, and the economy of words and quality of rhymes are a solid vibe. As a 33-year-old guy the lyrics aren’t necessarily directed to me, but that does not inhibit at all my admiration for Musgraves’s heart. Musgraves is a real poet throughout her entire discography, but this album more than ever efficiently soothes and cuts with words fluent in her private truths and victories.
The first song “Cardinal” starts with a superstitious omen of seeing a red bird after the sudden loss of a friend, asking “Are you bringing me a message from the other side?” A twangy guitar rings out behind nature-girl chanting. Musgraves’s artistic style is a little more emotional than logical, but the order and arrangement of songs is an adventure.
The title track “Deeper Well” begins with astrology and delves into her realization her husband isn’t the right person for her. She is committing to finding herself again without the self-medication morning bong hits that have masked her lingering unhappiness. “It’s natural when things lose their shine / So other things can glow / I’ve gotten older now, I know / How to take care of myself / I found a deeper well.” Its gestalt aura contextualizes the rest of the songs effectively: she is on an odyssey, and you want to support her, and you feel happy for her on her happier songs.
“Dinner With Friends” you should just dive into the lyrics yourself. She writes stories like impressionist paintings. They say a lot without saying a lot.
“The Architect” is a beautifully written song about wanting to talk to God, the architect, and ask why things are the way they are. Anyone who enjoys the religious-themed God-critiquing poetry and comedy I often publish will appreciate this kindred-spirit perspective. The lyrics end with “Can I speak to the architect?” and a more somber, agnostic last line “Is there an architect?”
“Lonely Millionaire” is a love song about being rich but knowing “the money and the diamonds and the things that shine” aren’t anything without your love. She is rich, but happy to share. “I’d burn it all to keep you warm,” she explains, “Who wants to be a lonely millionaire? / Comin’ home, ain’t no one there / That you can talk to in your king-sized bed.”
“Anime Eyes” has a real spoken word poetry chant that follows her passion for her love with the energy of a building up orgasm. And she ends it with an almost Musgrave-trademark heavy deepness, a kind of balancing on the edge of a Wittgensteinian abyss of emotion we just don’t have the words to articulate or truly understand, but Musgraves’s songs are pulchritudinous efforts.
Give it a listen, and maybe inebriate somehow a little to relax into its vibes.
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