Discovery is a true commodity nowadays. It’s obvious when Bigfoot sightings don’t deliver and people claim to have found Atlantis using Google Earth, but luckily, there always seems to be relics of good music to uncover. Most recently, we soaked in the missed-connection allure of proto-punkers Death, but a few years ago, an equally remarkable keepsake was brought to light in the form of German folk songstress Sibylle Baier.
In the early 1970’s, during a “particuarly dark and moody period of her young life,” a good friend took Sibylle on a road trip through the Alps in Genoa. After returning with fresh vitality, she wrote and recorded a set of dark, fragile songs on her reel to reel device. Content with her life at home, she opted out of a singing career (and acting too, she appeared in Wim Wender’s Alice in the Cities), and so these intimate portraits of family and friends were never heard outside the ears of their respective subjects. Flash forward thirty odd years to find her son Robby having compiled her songs on CD, handing it out to friends and family as a gift, including one copy for an unsuspecting J Mascis, who, after realizing what he was holding, passed it on to Orange Twin Records, where it finally saw a proper release in 2006. These 14 gorgeous songs were assembled into Sibylle’s one and only album, Colour Green.
This collection of skeletal folk is an austere study of domestic claustrophobia, pursed longing, and bittersweet optimism. Images of overgrown gardens and strained relationships color the album’s buoyant melodies. Sybille’s voice, a unique vessel in itself, strikingly combines Vashti Bunyan’s naive wonder and Nico’s taxed spirit into a haunting presence that would have stood tall beside either chanteuse if it had been available to the public. It forms a tapestry around her intuitive, deceptively simple guitar style, rooted in the narrative picking of Songs of Leonard Cohen but with a demure spin that fascinatingly contrasts her sharp observations. Case in point, Colour Green is an instant classic.
Unsurprisingly, the recent discovery of her work hasn’t seemed to phase Sibylle much, and there are no deadlines announced for a follow-up album, but she and her son Robby have been working on some new songs. About this time last year, the two reportedly entered the studio to record some piano pieces she wrote in the mid-80’s, after relocating to America. One of the new songs, “Let Us Know”, was included on the soundtrack for Wim Wender’s most recent film Palermo Shooting, and was released earlier this year. Check her website for updates on new material, and in the mean time do yourself a huge favor and pick up Colour Green, available now through Orange Twin.
For fans of: Vashti Bunyan, Marissa Nadler, Tara Jane O’Neil, Mount Eerie
MP3 :::
Sibylle Baier – Give Me a Smile
Sibylle Baier – The End
