Whisperin' and Hollerin' first saw Chantal Acda supporting LAMBCHOP on a UK tour with her band CHACDA in 2002. In the years since then there has been travelling. CHACDA albums, Icelandic ponies, a Labrador puppy and two babies have become involved. Her current solo project is SLEEPINGDOG.
Now settled in her native Belgium, she has been working on solo material with (as always seems to happen with Chantal) sympathetic collaboration with good friends.
Polar Life is a beautifully quiet album. The sense of being in a small room with a warm fire and a (real) dog asleep at your feet is strong. I think many listeners will experience the songs as if they were sung directly for the moment and for the one listener. There's romance and warmth, and a delicate loneliness that never touches self-pity.
Piano keys are chimed very gently, Chantal's voice is almost whispered, her accent filling the English lyrics with softness and ambiguity. Regret, affection, tenderness, openness and hope are the themes. Anyone moved by the music of AMY MILLAN or BON IVER are going to find something in which to lose themselves.
The polar life of the title is taken up in those chill notes of northern skies and the shivers of wind across the northern ocean, soothed by ambient warmth of the room in which the recording was made. The heartbeat gentleness of the lightest possible percussion and the painstakingly careful shift of melody and harmony seem protecting and generous. They are perfect balm for anyone who might have felt the extremes and who needs a still place and a chance to restore their faith.
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The song "polar life" itself enters so quietly and so gently that by the time it is audible at all you have been tugged in towards its centre. A piano is played one or two keys at a time, sounding as if in a house as you approach from outdoors. The tune is suspended, held teetering on a hesitant six note phrase and the lyric steps cautiously, apprehensively and with apology. There is the slightest synth part hinting of distant strings and the tune steps suddenly into sunshine with a daring shift and the words sing "when I hold you closer". It's a wonderful moment. Closing song "If only" is another outstanding track.
The secret is that she keeps things very very simple. It needs considerable nerve and a deft touch to sustain such minimalism across ten songs. They are secure and complete enough in themselves not to need embellishment or rushes of overstatement. The art is doing less to achieve more.
This is an album that offers the gifts of solace and pleasure on a dark winter night.
www.sleepingdog.be
www.gizehrecords.bigcartel.com
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