Mark Olson all over Alicante
'Spokeswoman of The Bright Sun' relives the Summer of Love
THE MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota singer-songwriter Mark Olson was a founding member of the seminal alternativecountry outfit, the Jayhawks and a member of the countryroots band, Original Harmony Ridge Creekdippers with his then-wife, Victoria Williams, who was suffering from multiple sclerosis.
During this time, the Olson name became synonymous with the higher echelons of the alt-country scene.
Despite reconvening with the Jayhawks a couple of times for short tours and an album, Mark Olson is now recognised for releasing material as a solo artist or with his Norwegian ‘wife and musical life partner’, Ingunn Ringvold.
There is a whole host of music to get through before we arrive at their latest album, which they will be promoting during their upcoming visit to Alicante province.
So, with this in mind it would be amiss of me not to mention in passing the classic Jayhawks albums, all of which are worth their weight in altcountry gold. Great tunes, melodies and harmonies abound and the albums are a good benchmark for the genre in general.
Our main focus this time around though is the duo’s 2017 release, Spokeswoman of the Bright Sun, which attracted generally good reviews.
First of all let’s take a look at the album’s backstory: “Our album was recorded during a Joshua Tree summer basically inside our cabin/home but sometimes outside on the porch,” says Mark.
“It was warm and I was making a lot of strange ice teas, brewing recipes that came from a herb book I had bought at the local thrift store. We went right from writing to rehearsal to recording in the May, June and July time period and I think that is the secret to making a unique album; keeping the momentum of the writing and part learning of the song as you move towards to final takes.
“The recording sessions with Danny Frankel (drums) took place in the morning before the Mojave heat was on. Danny lives nearby and has developed his own language via his beat communiques (a type of tambourine Esperanto). We were able to go back over some of the grooves and try different approaches and some of the songs just worked on the first couple of takes.
“Later that summer we visited with Lewis Keller (bass) in his home in Colorado. We had time and rather than show him charts and such we went on and on about the themes and significance of each song and how it relates to the recorded folk-rock legacy on certain albums stuck in time.
“The writing of the music for this album is the desert I long to return to, this valley of string sounds is where I really want to be and what takes up the most time in my heart. The remembering of how I was just a young teenager driving up Topanga Canyon with my aunt to a bluegrass festival. The sounds of banjos in the Santa Monica Mountains and the beautiful outdoors.
“That is why now I write mostly outside, under an old Siberian Elm tree that is home to a colony of bumblebees. Wow! Look Out! They buzz me on occasion and also just float above my head, hovering in a curious way like some natural apis blimps sent out to observe my lonely work!”
So where, as the listener, does this leave us? Well, for
me it is a blissed out, colourful, camomile-smelling elegy to the great outdoors that is, on many occasions, redolent of the Summer of Love, with the added whimsy of Ringvold’s assorted strings and keyboards, djembe, guitar and dulcimer.
Without doubt this is a joint album, and should be approached in that way. The album’s trippier, more melancholic tracks (Mary Francis, and Seminole Valley Tea Sipper Society) would not be half the tunes they are without Ingunn Ringvold’s input.
Spokeswoman of The Bright Sun would not have been out of place had it been released in the late 60s. In it we can hear the likes of Love, or Ashes are Burning-era Renaissance, but what comes across most of all is that this album is a labour of love, a story or thought-dream that needed to be told.
If the more bucolic-side of the 60s is your trip, then Mark Olson and Ingunn Ringvold, particularly on this latest release, could well be up your street.
As is always the case, the album and Olson’s back catalogue and all of the Jayhawks releases can be streamed through the likes of Spotify. Visually, YouTube will not let you down.
If you like what you hear, then get a load of this, Mark Olson has a total of three concerts lined up in two days: November 24 at 15.00 at Kiosco Miramar in Alicante, followed by a gig at Pub TNT Blues in Cox that evening, and a 12.30 performance at La Musical in Pedreguer the following day.
How good can it get?