ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 22, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
East Nashville artist Liv Greene spent three years assembling Deep Feeler, her sophomore LP (Free Dirt, October 18). This is a long time, especially for a songwriter in their early twenties, just hoping to carve her own niche and to find a way to stand apart from the crowd. Greene speaks of reinventing herself as a writer, evolving from a place of telling stories to become an artist who writes as a way of dialoguing candidly with herself. She took her time finding the right people to play her songs, and to ensure the final product honored what she heard in her head. Liv Greene's collection speaks to making bold choices. Deep Feeler explores self-forgiveness and gratitude. She sings: I wanna get dirt on my hands / And be proud to fuck it up / Before I get it right.
Like Miley Cyrus, Greene is processing her post-relationship resentment by buying herself flowers, though Greene wrote her song first. The contemporary country cut introduces the twang in her voice, the primarily acoustic accompaniment, the complicated emotions of a Twenty-First Century woman who's crying like a little child. Liv Greene's "Flowers" isn't a kiss-off to a departed lover as much as it's a self-reminder that these these take time: Got to hold onto our corkscrew / But I couldn't hold onto you / So I am buying myself wine / Buying myself time / Giving myself space, a little love, a little grace. On the downcast country-blues of "It Ain't Dead Yet", she offers an update: It ain't dead yet / But I think I found the way out.
Greene's voice is tender and vulnerable like Courtney Marie Andrews, and breaks or yodels like Jobi Riccio, especially on the title cut. I'm aware I'm a liar, she begins, her acoustic strum joined by Mike Robinson's pedal steel. The beautiful bends and barbs bring out the country in Greene's songs, as does the arrangement which adds Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and Jack Schneider on electric guitar. Elise Leavy's accordion accents "Wild Geese", which recalls Waxahatchee's recent roots rock projects. The singer channels Joni Mitchell's phrasing on "Katie", brightened by Christian Sedelmyer's lovely fiddle: Would it freak you out / If I said I think about you?
"Katie" also attests to Liv Greene's capacity for melodic songs that touch on both melancholy and bold honesty. There's plenty of codependence on Deep Feeler. On "Made It Mine Too", egged on by the so-sad cry of the pedal steel, she asks, Why can't I make you happy / Why can't I make you whole? "You Were Never Mine" is a fresh emotional bruise, a heartbreakingly direct expression of loss featuring a careful instrumental interplay and the singer's most impactful vocal.
Greene is fearless in owning to her shortcomings, but does so not as a wet blanket but as a strong and emotionally maturing young woman. Jarosz drives "I've Got My Work To Do" with her bluegrass mandolin, Greene frank in her intentions: I wanna be a reckless woman / A damn hard working girl / Before I'm anybody's wife, or a perfect daughter. As a singer, she is very capable of lifting her voice into its upper register, but like Gillian Welch she is exceptionally expressive at her lower reaches as well. Coincidentally recorded at Welch and David Rawlings' Woodland Sound Studios with Matt Andrews, Liv Greene has spent her time wisely in crafting Deep Feeler, and in deliberately defining her artistic identity. She closes her second collection with another striking statement of mission: I can be grateful and still mad / I can be happy and still sad / I can be learning to deal with the fact / That I can't be yours anymore. Plainspoken yet profound. Both unguarded and headstrong. But undeniably moving in the right direction.
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