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May 18, 2018 - Ghostly International
The harp is one of humanity’s oldest instruments, manifested throughout history in a multitude of shapes and sizes. There’s Orpheus’ lute from Greek Mythology, the Mangbetu bow harp from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the dulcimers of Appalachian folk music to name a few. But, of all the harps of the world, the classical concert harp takes the most astounding commitment. The wide range and demure flow of its beautiful sounds, evocative of nature and sentimentality, come at a cost. The instrument itself is a bulky mammoth that stomps onto the stage and demands attention like the elephant it is. It takes up space as a heavy cross to bear, not to mention the calloused fingers and endurance required to play it. To become a harpist is to commit to a bold lifestyle.
LA-based Mary Lattimore relishes in that boldness, and she’s keeping the harp alive in audiences that don’t always expect a harpist to be on the lineup. She’s performed with a variety of artists such as Meg Baird, Kurt Vile, Nick Cave and Thurston Moore, and she toured with the indie artist Waxahatchee in 2017. Lattimore is forever dissolving the boundaries of musical genre. And even when she is not physically present on a stage in front of you, she commands the room. Listening to her contemporary classical music is a visceral experience—you can feel the activity of her fingers on the strings in the complexity of the sounds she creates.
Her latest album Hundreds of Days contains endless spaces and textures as well as moments of tension that are heartbreaking. ‘Baltic Birch’ is a slow march of grieving a lost self in the heavy silence of the woods. There are sounds that are tough to chew, striking, painful. This is not the flighty strumming harp of spas in fancy hotels or guided meditation videos. Lattimore has fingers with the power of ten people. There are often 3-4 layers of melody being played at once in these songs, and listening is mesmerizing as the melodies weave in and out of each other like rapids. Along with the gritty textures of plucking and scratching, the softer moments on the album maintain a universal hymn-like quality, especially on ‘On the Day You Saw the Dead Whale.’
Mary Lattimore’s songwriting is autobiographical and personal, as evidenced in her track titles as well as the distinctive modal shifts that happen from song to song. There is an ambling, narrative poetry to this album, like reading a diary while walking around the Earth. Her expansive harping is also supported with a variety of other musical instruments placed minimally throughout the songs, adding depth and rounding out the soundscapes. Lattimore’s instrumental exploration includes synthesizers, guitars, airy vocals, and even a Theremin. She creates a perfect cathartic storm to tickle my emotions and make me sob with joy and pain at the same time.
With Hundreds of Days, the Ghostly International label has presented us with something different than their typical oeuvre—a journey into its sentimental side. Mary Lattimore wrote this collection of songs while serving as a resident artist at the Headlands Centre for the Arts in San Francisco in the summer of 2017, after moving across the country. She told Daniel Sylvester from Exclaim!, "It was all part of my learning to love California and trying to move past my life in Philadelphia.”* Experiencing the record of Mary Lattimore’s latest journey firsthand is a powerful reminder that the movement of life is magical. ☔
*Source: "Mary Lattimore on Exploring Harp, Writing Instrumentals with Emotion and Life in L.A." exclaim.ca. Retrieved 2018-06-23.