MARY MARGARET O’HARA
Apartment Hunting
Maple Music
· Long-awaited second album from legendary avant-pop songstress
Mary Margaret O'Hara's only real album, 1988's Miss America, is probably the one Canadian pop recording of the past 25 years that is widely considered a classic. In just the last year, I have come across reverent mentions in the French, Scandinavian and Japanese press, where it was taken for granted that the reader was as familiar with her work as of that of Scott Walker, Brian Eno or David Sylvian.
Apartment Hunting, unfortunately, is not exactly a follow-up. Recorded and largely improvised on the spot as a last-minute contribution to a film project, it echoes Miss America's glorious fusion of free jazz singing and folk-pop songwriting, but only rarely recreates its intensity.
Though the intelligence remains, O'Hara's voice is often a little rough, her accompanists throw jazz-lite and alt-country clichés all over the place, and the songs are either far too short (mostly under two minutes), or far too long.
So, while it's a welcome reminder that Canada has a musical underground, Apartment Hunting only confirms the sad state of our cultural industries, and it seems that, in order to produce a work that is a real measure of her talent, O'Hara will have to follow Joni Mitchell's footsteps and move to London or New York.
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