My Echo

Album review

Laura Veirs is far from the first singer/songwriter to make an album informed by the breakup of a romantic relationship. However, she's one of the few to make a breakup album produced by the person who inspired it. Veirs and noted indie producer Tucker Martine had been married for 19 years when they announced they were divorcing in November 2019, and 2020's My Echo was recorded with Martine at the controls (as he had done with most of her albums), created as their marriage was at the point of collapse. The non-album single "I Was a Fool," which she debuted on Valentine's Day 2020, was a more blunt and emotionally naked musical response to the end of her marriage; My Echo was recorded before "I Was a Fool" but released eight months afterwards, and it's clear that that song's discontent was real and present as this material came together, even if it was less pointed. The opening song, "Freedom Feeling," begins with the words "I don't know where I am going, but I've got you by my side"; however, as the tune plays out, those words feel ominous rather than comforting, the sound of someone searching for a freedom they don't honestly feel. Elsewhere, "Turquoise Walls" finds her wrestling with the fear she's been betrayed, "Burn Too Bright" documents a moment where the distance between them becomes all too obvious in the studio, "Brick Layer" obsesses on the weaknesses that compromise her carefully constructed veneer of strength, and "All the Things" is a litany of the decay and collapse of things of her control. My Echo is all about the emotions that begin to break through the surface when love turns bad, and the soft emotional reserve of Veirs' voice articulates the unease in her heart and soul with gestures that are subtle and telling at once; when she sings "Come and rest awhile in my song/Nothing's wrong" in "I Sing to the Tall Man," she makes it obvious how false that is without tipping her hand with histrionics. And if Veirs and Martine were falling out as they made this, he gave her a lovely going-away present with My Echo, which is masterful in the ghostly beauty of its arrangements and spectral soundscapes. The album creates beauty out of fear and uncertainty, and it's among Laura Veirs' most personal and satisfying works to date.

© Mark Deming /TiVo