Nick Jaina is showing signs of being one of the most prolific of Portland, Oregon’s many prolific independent musicians. Already in 2011 he has put out a free download album Sleeping On The Covers that features songs by other artists as diverse as Madonna, Gillian Welch, Nick Cave and Sting. That was a followup to 2010’s critically praised A Bird In The Opera House.
His latest project is a collection of 10 of his songs that he recorded with 10 different female vocalists, nearly all of them currently Portland-based themselves. The Beanstalks That Have Brought Us Here Are Gone is an absolutely delightful indie-folk album that’s a virtual showcase of Northwest musical talent. The songs are all basically love songs of one kind or another, from the dark dirge of Jolie Holland’s “You Were So Good To Me” to Amanda Spring’s “The President Of The Chess Club” and Myshkin’s whimsical folk “Ortolan.”
Jaina has a deft hand with a lyric and a good ear for a melody, making it hard to pick any favorites out of these 10 tracks. Kaylee Cole’s opening track, “When The Blind Man Rings That Bell” and Johanna Kunin’s “James” are both piano-centric parlor ballads, love-song hymns a la Stephen Foster. Cole sings hers in a lovely smooth alto, accompanied by cello, violin, bass and a distorted, heavily reverbed electric guitar in addition to the piano. Kunin (Bright Archer) also has a pleasant unaffected alto; on her song our protagonist sits in church next to her love interest, consumed by thoughts of fire. This song is a good example of Jaina’s poetic lyrics:
When the band plays / and they give praise / there’s a blank space / where my heart lays. / They have the notes right / but they are hollow and they are sour, / and the clock’s hands they are handcuffed / they don’t ever move fast enough / they are frozen on the face of every hour.
Holland pumps up the emotional quotient with her interpretation of “You Were So Good To Me,” a love song set at a funeral. The arrangement is a slow rocking Calexico-style southwestern noir featuring trumpet, acoustic guitars and a brushed snare. Annalisa Tornfelt of Black Prairie (who played fiddle on The Decemberists’ 2011 release The King Is Dead) has fun with the gently lumbering waltz “Whiskey Riddle,” as does Amanda Spring (from the band Point Juncture WA) on her dub-infused song about being in love with “The President Of The Chess Club.” The most country-sounding track fittingly is “Awake When I’m Sleeping” sung by Audie Darling of Portland via Nashville. And Corinna Repp (Tu Fawning) gets a languid, loungey sound on “Missing Awhile.”
If I had to pick a favorite it’d be “Once But Never Again” sung by Luzelena Mendoza of the Portland band Y La Bamba. This one uses lots of fantastic imagery set to a calypso beat, with backing vocals from some of the other singers.
And Laura Gibson ends things on a classy note with “No One Gives Their Heart Away” in a lovely arrangement featuring a cople of violins, bass and guitar backing her on a light and jaunty tune.
You can listen to the album at Jaina’s Bandcamp page. And you’ll find audio and video downloads of songs from this and other of Jaina’s album at his website.
(Hush, 2011)
