For several years, singer-songwriter, Laurie Levine has stirred Johannesburg’s live music scene with her beautifully rendered material – and now she’s intent on making an impression nationally with her debut solo album.
Titled ‘Unspoken’, the 14-track release is a pop album that delights in defying expectations – slipping jazzy piano parts into jaunty songs about being smitten (‘The One’), or punching a rootsy momentum into the music (on the likes of ‘Adriel’), propelling it beyond the genre’s usual confines. And there are many songs that see the 27-year-old moving into life’s darker corners, like the arresting ‘Repeat’ (a song Levine penned with Karma Anne Swanepoel) and the alt.country-tinged ‘Speechless’ which features the incomparable Jim Neversink on slide guitar.
Neversink turns up again on ‘How About’, and ‘Stranger’, lending his vocals to the latter song, one of the album’s standouts – but don’t for a moment think that the appearance of guest musicians is about giving Levine assistance. She doesn’t need it.
‘Unspoken’ is utterly Levine’s project – and it shows in the emotional frankness that underpins her lyrics, making for, at times, difficult listening as she spins out her tales of living in a city that’s streaked with energy and yet offers many opportunities for dislocation, as heard on the terrific, ‘Big House’ (“It’s so much easier/to live inside this bubble/where I’m hard to find”).
At the core of ‘Unspoken’ are a clutch of songs that waste no time in laying claim to the heart of any listener through Levine’s ability to move from the sweetly intimate (‘In Your Arms’) to minutely-observed social commentary with the ease of someone born to it.
Levine’s route to the recording studio began a when she recorded a handful of tracks in 2004. “After I began gigging, playing just as a singer-songwriter, I realised that I wanted to get into the studio,” she says. “It was hard ‘though. In the beginning I was writing a lot of very personal ballads which I found exposing to perform – and very different from getting up on stage in musical theatre and being a character.”
But those first demos were confirmation for many in the industry that Levine’s music should reach a broader audience – and earned her a publishing deal with Sony ATV Music Publishing. Still, in spite of receiving some radio play for the track ‘Morning Sky’, Levine chose to pull back from recording a full-length album, waiting until the timing felt right.
‘Unspoken’ in fact contains just one song – ‘The One’ – from those first demos. “I felt like that early recording process had not been as smooth as it could have been. Also my writing had changed to reveal a maturity that doesn’t match those first demos. I had a lot of new material too, that I felt very excited about and so recording ‘Unspoken’ was like starting a new beginning again.”
In the opposite of her demo studio experience, recording ‘Unspoken’ was effortless. “The songs had been worked so often live that we knew what we wanted them to sound like – and then there was Matthew.”
Matthew Fink came in as producer and, says Levine, had a transforming effect on the music. “He’s a genius and a totally underrated producer.”
Funded by Levine herself, Fink’s ability to move with speed in the studio without compromising on the sound has played a substantial role in how ‘Unspoken’ has turned out. “We recorded the bulk of the album in four days and a lot of that was down to the preproduction we had done working the songs live on stage and Matthew’s skills,” Levine explains.
In post-production, Fink’s particular affection for music that lives beyond the mainstream added elements that draw Levine’s personal tales of longing and hope into an atmospheric and, at times, electric musical terrain.
Listening closely and you will hear that there’s something about ‘Unspoken’ that subtly locates the album in Johannesburg, a city that Levine’s always called home.
She calls her discovery of her songwriting gifts as a teenager in Jozi “an accident”. “I wasn’t particularly musical as a child but then my sister began to learn the guitar and I was also introduced to The Indigo Girls and it opened something up for me.”
Teaching herself to play and writing songs in her late teens is something that has filtered through to Levine’s current sound – most especially in its naturalness. “I’m not the most technical guitarist. I did study classical guitar for a while but I liked the freedom of finding something on the guitar and not knowing what it was. I never knew about chord progression and I guess this gave me something original.”
Nowadays, Levine is taking a keener interest in the theory of music. “I’ve reached a stage where it has become more important – especially working with the band. You have to be a bit more specific about what you want from them.”
On stage, Levine is intense at times, more subdued at others. There’s no histrionics in sight – surprising for someone who studied Drama at the University of the Witwatersrand and had an idea that she was going to go into musical theatre. “I hated it though – hated going to auditions and relying on others for my creativity so I started writing more and more music which seemed to come more naturally to me.”
After some time overseas, Levine began working at the Drum Café, marking the start of a relationship with it that has impacted fairly significantly on her creative life. Levine assisted in creating the Drum Café’s museum of traditional African instruments, and helped run the Drum Café’s African Music agency. The relationship also saw the publication of ‘The Drumcafe’s Traditional Music of South Africa’ which Levine wrote and which is now considered an essential resource for academics, musicians, and many others.
“Working on the book gave me a far greater insight into traditional instruments and I started experimenting with them soon after I wrote it,” she says, adding, “but it’s not easy to merge different ideas that come from very different places”.
Levine is starting to see more of that with the inclusion of jazz guitarist, Thabang Noosi in her live band. “I’d always wanted a different influence in the band and he’s contributing that because he’s taken a real interest in my music, giving it a different feel.”
Noosi also carries the guitar parts, leaving Levine free to concentrate on her vocal performances. Other members of the band include Bruce Lyall on drums and Brenda ou Tim on bass with Levine playing rhythm guitar.
“The album may say my name on the cover but live, it’s all about the band,” Levine says. “It’s very special when you are able to bring songs to life in a way that just is magical and that’s what we are doing.”
Levine and her band plan on playing live as often as possible in the coming months, showcasing ‘Unspoken’ to new and loyal fans. As she says: “It’s really not easy to sustain yourself as a musician, as anyone in the industry will tell you but I have a destiny and a plan and I am not going to let those go lightly.”
By Diane Coetzer- Entertainment Africa
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