[review 2006: the best of the year]

After years of releases with several prominent bands in the Pacific Northwest, Rose Melberg disappeared. The Softies released and toured with their final album, Holiday in Rhode Island, and then Melberg and co-conspirator Jen Sbragia went their seperate ways. Sbragia went on to play with the All-Girl Summer Fun Band, but from Melberg nary a peep was heard for four years. As it turns out, Melberg also happens to have a child that’s about four years old.

Through perseverance and probably a lot of juggled schedules, she finally managed to write and record new material, her first since the beginning of the decade. Recorded with a few friends in Vancouver, Cast Away the Clouds sounds more like a product of the quiet lakeside town she calls home. Hushed, intimate and organic, Cast Away the Clouds bears a resemblance to Melberg’s work with the Softies and her previous solo album, a 1998 collection of loose ends called Portola, but the mood is subtly yet strikingly different.

The Softies relied on electric guitars and hushed vocals to weave their magic, a simple yet potent configuration. For Cast Away The Clouds Melberg has expanded her repertoire. This is a mostly unplugged affair, with an acoustic replacing the electric guitars (though if you listen closely on “Cold Sea,” you might get a twinge of Softies nostalgia). Melberg also plays piano on several songs, which works so well on songs like “Take Some Time” and “Irene” that it’s a surprise she hasn’t really done much piano work before now (that I know of, anyway). At the same time, her hushed vocals aren’t quite so hushed anymore—not only does Melberg sound stronger and sing with more conviction, she also harmonizes with herself throughout the album to great effect.

Throughout her long and storied career, Melberg has covered a lot of bases. Her work with the Softies consisted of quiet ballads and soft tones, a big change from the more straightforward and traditional indie-pop oeuvre of Tiger Trap and Go Sailor. If those two stages of her career represented emotional extremes, exuberance and heartbreak, then Cast Away the Clouds is perhaps an attempt to reincorporate a tiny bit of the former into her music. The album wavers back and forth between guarded optimism and bittersweetness, a more complex mix of emotions that feels more complete, easier to embrace than the limited palette the Softies used to paint with.

Five years is a long time to wait, but Cast Away the Clouds sounds more intimate and personable than anything Melberg’s done to date. After all these years, she can still put you under her spell with nothing but a guitar and the sound of her angelic voice. Cast Away the Clouds isn’t just an album you can love; it’s an album that loves you.