Babehoven
Water’s Here in You
DOUBLE DOUBLE WHAMMY
There are times when I struggle to locate the precise purpose of an album review. What was once a kind of consumer guide has since morphed into something less tangible. With few exceptions, reviewers aren’t suggesting how the reader should spend $20 on the newest CD, vinyl, or digital download. It occurs to me that instead, time and attention have become the primary currency which the reviewer must convince readers to—or dissuade them from—spend on a new record. Is it worth it? The second record from Hudson Valley songwriting duo Babehoven is all about time and worth—as is, in many ways, my reaction to their music.
The thing I realized before diving into their new album Water’s Here in You is that, above all, I want to like—even love—Babehoven. Aside from making the kind of rustic indie-folk that’s my preferred genre, there’s something about Maya Bon and Ryan Albert that simply draws, and often holds, my attention. I find myself willing to let Babehoven grow on me slowly, methodically, and gradually. Water’s Here in You is no different and, at its core, it relies on this type of engagement. Bon and Albert’s songs aren’t in a hurry (and in fact are sometimes frustratingly lethargic), and their growth is far from linear, but they have a way of wrapping themselves around you, vining their way into your subconscious.
Of course, that can only happen if you let it. Though this might sound strange for an album as lush and often beautiful as Water’s Here in You, it’s a record that has a way of keeping you at arm’s length. Bon’s vocals may be warm and inviting, but as a lyricist, she can be frustratingly opaque. “Coral, coral, snake snake, curl inside me, soft wool, rough blue, pearl inside you,” she sings on “Lightness Is Loud,” one of the album’s more direct singles.
So much of Water’s Here in You embraces this kind of impressionistic storytelling to the point where the thread can be lost completely. Sometimes this directly serves the song, as on the brilliantly oblique “My Best Friend Needs,” but just as often it feels like a hurdle too tall to climb. This is put into harshest relief toward the middle of the record, a stretch of songs that starts with “Millenia,” a kind of stream-of-consciousness IV drip that rarely reaches the level of engagement required for such an experiment, and a composition which bogs down the record just as it’s taking off.
Thankfully, and perhaps tellingly, Bon and Albert save the best for last. “Ella’s From Somewhere Else” is as deliberate and measured as anything else on Water’s Here in You, the epic conclusion the whole record is leading to, the breaking of a wave started long offshore. “If I’d known it was the last time, I don’t know if I’d cry,” sings Bon, the spectral presence that is Ella—namely O’Conner Williams of Squirrel Flower, Bon’s muse for the track—hovering above the song, a “beached whale, spaceship, black hole” that walks the precarious line between the ambiguous and the inscrutable. This is, simply put, the reason you pour your time and attention into a band like Babehoven.
