Ears Wide Open: Cornelia Murr

S.Lo on June 28th, 2018

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Cornelia Murr (Photo by Wyndham Boylan-Garnett)

Cornelia Murr may have dual citizenship in the U.K. and the U.S., but arguments can be made that she and her upcoming album “Lake Tear of the Clouds,” out on July 13 via Autumn Tone Records, belong in that nether world of the Bang Bang Bar nightclub cueing the credits at the end of nearly every “Twin Peaks” Season 3 episode, bringing us from a disjointed, disorienting world back to the present timeline of reality.

Murr and producer Jim James (My Morning Jacket) hid in the hills of the Hudson Valley to record the album at Palomino Sound, evoking the forest mist spirits of the northern Adirondack Mountains — or Snoqualmie, Wash. Enlisted to assist were Bo Koster on keys (My Morning Jacket), Lola Kirke and Naomi Greene on vocals (the latter also on electric harp), Shane McKillop on bass and Justin Flint on drums (the latter two from Amo Amo), with Murr adding atmosphere with Mellotron, Omnichord, pocket piano, guitars and percussion.

The beautifully plaintive collection of melodies include a cover of Yoko Ono’s “I Have a Woman Inside My Soul.” The latest single, “Tokyo Kyoto,” is a self-possessed, haunting song that can be about a person, a place, a time or a memory. Or all of them together. One can easily categorize it in the sensual tradition of Serge Gainsbourg songs for French chanteuses. The track takes its time, with the video (directed by Destefano DeLuise) visually exploring themes parallel to geisha life and Laura Palmer’s fateful end with images of face and body paint, an innocent younger figure of herself and plastic that mysteriously wraps itself around her in a dark room inhabited by a commanding shadow self. Her lyrics possibly (most likely) inhabit Palmer’s call to Agent Dale Cooper as he time travels in Season 3 to save her, “Meet me back in violent time / I’d ask you to be mine, all mine / But now my darlin’ I can’t stay long / I’m sending you off without in this song / You won’t be joining in this place/ I’ll be wandering around your face.”

Deputy Gordon Cole (ahem, Mr. Lynch), can you please proceed with this mystery (ahem, Season 4) if just to see Murr shine where she belongs (at the Bang Bang Bar)? Like, where’s Josie?

||| Stream: “Tokyo Kyoto”