Kendall Jane Meade
Space
MOTHER WEST
Known first for her work as part of the indie-pop ensemble Mascott, songwriter Kendall Jane Meade has yanked the “indie” from that equation and added a lush, folky component to the pop mix as a solo artist. As proof, lean into her bruising, confessional, divorce-centric new album Space. Painfully named after the thing her ex asked for after 10 years of coupledom, Meade carries on the tradition of handsomely hurt, vow-busting break-up albums made best by Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, and Björk for her solo debut, appropriately.
Sticking the landing when it comes to maintaining the dreamiest qualities of Mascott in her new musical arrangements, Meade cracks that cloudy dream at the seams, sonically, by creating (or reliving) a dramatic lyrical narrative. By telling her sad-to-glad story in chronological order, you can hear her wear her broken heart on her bloodied sleeve. To that end, Space is like a punch in the face—or repeated punches—in real time, sung in a stately, optimistic, folky manner reminiscent of Joni Mitchell on Song to a Seagull’s “I Had a King.”
Starting with “The Garden,” the keen greenery that Meade holds dearly is beginning to brown and burn. “Stereo” allows its central character to unhinge and detach. Here, she can simultaneously mourn the sunshine of missing what once was love and the beginnings of learning to embrace the shadows of loss. The possibility, too, that a past relationship could open one’s sluices to new aesthetic vibes and fresh feelings and adventures on the road is what carries Meade through “I’d Like to Know Myself” in a manner similar to what Joni described throughout Hejira. Done here, however, without Mitchell’s blue jazz, Meade makes her ruminations pop, literally and figuratively.
Added to Meade’s genteel lonely-but-learning sensibility on Space is a series of old friends and new contributing writing and playing bits—Anders Parker, Mary Timony, Butch Norton—for what turns out to be an oddly communal record for a story sung solo.
