Anne Malin Strange Power!

Strange Power!, the fifth record from Durham, NC-based songwriter and poet Anne Malin Ringwalt, emerges from the darkest waters of the self into a world remade. Releasing inconjunction with her second book of poetry, What Floods (Inside the Castle, Oct. 2024), Strange Power! overflows with Ringwalt's teeming and sensuous personal symbolry: glowing lilacs andgentle queens, dolphins wild and girls who grew up brave _ T.S. Eliot sung by Cat Power, backedby Mount Eerie. She sings: "I rose up from water."Ringwalt writes and performs with the authority of a lifetime spent harnessing the alchemy of storytelling; her belief in the power of words to heal and transform is palpable in each achingly- delivered lyric. Made amidst profound inner and outer change, Strange Power! also sees Ringwalttaking up the role of self-producer for the first time, mirroring and supporting the record's Orphic quest by gathering contributions from a coterie of friends wielding an electric range ofAmerican instruments. Violins, vibraphones, drum machines, electric guitars dappled with springreverb, wind-blown shells, and a host of other numinous sounds form an unfurling and shadowy world which was then carefully honed during the mixing process (shepherded by MichaelCormier-O'Leary and Lucas Knapp) _ settling the final record in an eerie meridian betweenspareness and verdancy.The result is a beguiling and darkly blooming realm: the sound of a personal cosmos beingremade, piece by piece. Ringwalt is at the height of her spirit as both songwriter-poet and singer, her willowy voice by turns conjuring and keening as she reckons with her deep past and thestories told since. Opening track "The Pines" sets the stage for a record of truly life-long scope: "I was a child, now Ihold her / I was asleep for many years." Some songs, like the gorgeous "North Carolina" and "TheSaint," were written as early as 2013 but, Ringwalt says, "insisted upon being remembered" as therecord took shape; in its final form, they serve as inc...