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Jenny Gillespie Mason Jenny Gillespie Mason
Album: Safety In The Light
Label: Native Cat
Tracks: 8
Website: https://jennygillespiemason.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-safety-of-the-light-2

Jenny Gillespie Mason hails from northern California and has, for several years, been producing experimental and psychedelic jazz as part of Sis and the Lower Wisdom. However, for her début album 'Safety In The Light' she has returned to her acoustic folk roots and it's perhaps not surprising that this is an album that explores both the human and spiritual aspects of life and how they can be combined in a modern world. The album has a laid back feel, an almost 70s vibe of gentle songs.

'Horizontal' opens the album and displays these feeling. Gently paced, with a sweet voice and with Alex Budman's woodwind and Gabe Noel's cello to round out the sound it looks at how nature can nurture the body and soul which we sometimes forget as modern life gets in the way. It's a very relaxing song with a message we should remind ourselves of on occasions. 'I Thought I Was Surrendered' reminds us that we're not islands, whilst searching for ourselves we have to remember there are other people in our lives. That's part of the structure of the album, that we must acknowledge our part in humanity so have a role to play.

Several tracks do stray into a form of religion, as in 'Medicine Of Light', that there is a greater power we arise from. It's not a view I share but there an agreement that the world would be a better place if we respected it and accepted each each other. 'Rungs Of Love' is a bright tune and a possible love song, of how a relationship can have aspects, again coming back to a balance between individual needs and collective feeling.

Closing the album 'Woman From Nottingham' isn't about Nottingham in England, but rather the one in New Hampshire. It's a very meaningful song and one that still resonates today. It's base is the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers but a reminder that Jenny got from the her college professor shortly afterwards to remember the beauty of the world in times of horror and sorrow. We should not let these events colour our view.

'Safety In The Light' is a very gentle album in a hectic world. It's one to put on, lay back and be immersed in. It places the world into a human scale, where things will happen but we still have ourselves and it's important to hold on to that.

Tony Birch

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