Cassette Review // Sara Ruth "Words on the Wind"

$7 //
Edition of 100 //
https://sarahruth.bandcamp.com/album/words-on-the-wind //

"Words on the Wind" begins with a sound which could be an accordian or an organ.   The singing is unsteady at first, but then it becomes like Billie Holiday.   There is a spoken word track and then we go into pianos and singing, somewhere between Jessica Rabbit and Amy Winehouse with a little Tori Amos thrown in for good measure.   I enjoy the lyric about thinking you'd die for love then coming to find it was a lack thereof.

The organ like sounds return in a heavy way.    This is such a powerful voice on these songs.   Another spoken word track now, this time about cassettes teaching her Morse code.    This story turns into the rambling of a guitar feel, but we slow down a little bit as we round that bend.   This is the first instrumental song on here and it makes me feel a certain way I cannot quite describe.

A spoken word track now about screaming and then with some screaming too.   This takes on a bit of static and becomes quite terrifying, like the soundtrack to a haunted house.   It gets choppy and yet I can hear waves crashing.   It fades out in rhythm.   We're into the story of a broken down piano now, as it feels like as the keys are being played they are falling apart.  I imagine it more like teeth falling out of someone's mouth though.   That great, operatic type of singing returns now.

On the flip side we open up with what sounds like glass breaking and there is a certain element of suspense to this song.   There is singing in here now and it's going so wild I don't know how to describe what is happening. 

The deep organ tones come in now with the singing.   There is a serious build in these pianos now.   They're growing.   This driving piano piece is instrumental and yet also somehow enchanting.   You can really hear it breaking down, growing silent, and then the bass takes it to another place.   Breathing exercises seem to be the next song.   Beeping comes through, rapid, like a distress signal but also it feels like a bird call and then that beautiful singing returns with it all.

Somehow, it feels like an old Disney princess movie but then this eerie type of singing comes through as well and makes it feel quite different from that.   There is a lot of dark hollowness within this song.   More breathing exercises now and it begins to resemble a horror movie.   I don't remember the name of the movie, but remember when that Disney princess came out of the cartoon and tried to function in real life?  This reminds me of something like that as well, which I realize seems odd as I type it right after my previous impression.

A spoken word track now about the Dustbowl, and I actually really do enjoy that time period- there was that show on HBO about it some years back.   You can hear the wind blowing through in the background, which creates its own sound coupled with the hiss of the cassette.   This final track is about the preacher speaking of Armageddon, which just kind of feels like the best way to give this cassette a sense of finality, of closure.