Sometimes I wonder if spending too much time in recording studios has adversely affected my ability to enjoy music as the experience makes it, too often, obvious that technology has been used simply because it can cover a lack of ability or substance. Then again, along comes an album like “All I Do Is Move” by Anna Wiebe and I find proof that the real deal is still out there just waiting to be discovered.
You might therefore assume that “All I Do Is Move” is a shop full of ear candy and, to a great extent, it is as Ms. Wiebe is a songwriter of the old school who clearly possesses the required literacy to both make a point with her songs whilst maintaining a lyrical stance that often verges on the poetic. You need rather more than an online thesaurus to pull that sort of thing off.
Her songs, therefore, kind of sneak up on you. In terms of musical arrangements, those songs have a curiously hypnotic effect that seems at odds with the wham bam fashion of today and, as if to reinforce her ability to hold on to your attention, she demonstrates a turn of phrase that seems designed to catch your attention not on the first but the second pass. Her voice, likewise, is delicately laconic yet she lacks neither the authority nor the confidence to make her words seem both worldly and worthy.
The point – and I do eventually get to one – is that Anna Wiebe is destined to appeal to ears tired of a music business fixated on fast food loops and corporate collaborations.
“All I Do Is Move” is therefore an album that makes the world a better place and that’s why Anna Wiebe is the real deal.
Best song? The alternately edgy and sinuous “Double Turns”.
The verdict? An album with both maturity and melodic appeal.
Available from Bandcamp.