“Live In Bergen” (Ocean Omen Records)
By Eleni P. Austin
SBT, or Sarabeth Tucek, if you’re not into that whole brevity thing, is an artist whose music isn’t readily characterized or pigeon-holed. I think she’s pretty okay with that distinction. Still, her albums would easily fit into any record collection that includes Joni Mitchell, the Velvet Underground, Laura Marling, Patti Smith and Mazzy Star.
Born in Miami and raised in Manhattan, Sarabeth spent her adolescence in Westfield, New Jersey. Although her parents divorced early on, she and her sister had plenty of quality time with their dad. A Classical music aficionado, he also introduced his daughters to the tangled complexities of artists like Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson. She credits him with teaching her how to really listen to music, soaking up the subtle nuances. From her mom, she learned to appreciate the music of Woody Guthrie, Cat Stevens and Bruce Springsteen.
Sarabeth’s original career goal was acting. But those plans were derailed after she forged a friendship with Brian Jonestown Massacre architect Anton Newcombe. It motivated her to pick up a guitar and begin writing music. She relocated to Los Angeles at the start of the 21st century and came to the attention of Bill Callahan (a.k.a. Smog). She added backing vocals to an album he was producing for EZT, as well as Smog’s 10th long-player, Supper.
Her self-titled debut arrived in 2007, produced by Ethan Johns and Luther Russell. It was immediately embraced by the cognoscenti, her sound drew comparisons to everyone from Karen Carpenter and Neil Young to Cat Power. Bob Dylan was so smitten with her sound that he invited her on tour as his opening act. Sarabeth’s sophomore effort, Get Well Soon, also produced by Luther, arrived in 2011. Visceral and uncompromising, the album was heavily influenced by the death of her father. By turns mordant and cathartic, it was a gimlet-eyed meditation on grief. It would be nearly a dozen years before she returned with another record.
She definitely made up for lost time. 2023’s Joan Of All was an expansive 15-song set that offered up a smorgasbord of styles, from caustic Punk Rock to shivery Shoe-Gaze, to primitive Garage Rock and contemplative ballads. Now, nearly two years later, she is back with a live effort, efficiently entitled Live In Bergen.
The 10-song set was recorded in Norway in during a days-long music festival in August 2019 that focused on female singer-songwriters. For this intimate acoustic performance, she was ably assisted by producer Luther Russell on guitar and Jason Hiller on bass.
The album opens with “Something For You,” off her self-titled debut. Bendy acoustic notes shift from spiky to sweet, bookended by lowing bass lines. Sarabeth’s piercing contralto wraps around lyrics that offer stinging rejoinders aimed at a former (current?) beau: “I left you long before you were gone, I’ve been, I’ve been playing along, here’s something for you to put down, you never heard me coming, but when I leave, it will make an awful sound.” Shadowing each verse, the guitar splits the difference between piquant and honeyed, mirroring her sardonic words.
Two other tracks from her 2007 debut dot the set. On “Ambulance,” strumming guitar is quickly supplanted by swooping riffs. Sarabeth straddles the line between whimsy and reality when she imbues inanimate objects with thoughts and feelings: “The broken down ambulance will always have the same thing to say ‘I know there is trouble and I’m on my way,’ the boarded up hotel will always have the same thing to say, ‘I know you are far from home and I wish I could open up my arms for you today.’” Luther adds harmony vocals to the chorus before unspooling a rippling guitar solo that is kaleidoscopic yet concise.
Less sanguine is “Stillborn.” Jangly guitar washes over hushed bass lines. Sarabeth’s no-nonsense vocals are matched by lyrics that wrestle with demons, old and new: “In the time for you to wake, the calm I feel has slipped away and I am left here in the open space, it’s not a question of wanting to, if I thought I could, I would/But the clouds roll in at will, and there’s always something inside that won’t be still, that can’t be killed.” Strident, almost dissonant guitar slashes through the break, neatly disturbing the track’s delicate equilibrium.
Songs from her second album, Get Well Soon, receives the most bandwidth here. The desolate cri de coeur of “The Wound And The Bow” is powered by filigreed acoustic fretwork and brittle bass. Sarabeth’s mercurial vocals run parallel with lyrics that limn the edges of grief: “The world turned upside-down, everything shook from the ground, all that was lost cries to be found, empty bottles, bones and ashes, everything unfastened, I’ve lost my way, I’ve lost my place, the world now empty makes a hollow face.” Gossamer guitar alternately cascades and strums, effortlessly folding into “Wooden.”
The guitar on “Wooden” swivels from shaggy riff-age to liquid arpeggios, flowing over agile bass lines. As Sarabeth works through the assorted stages of grief, denial just barely gives way to acceptance. Luther’s angular harmonies shade the sorrow as she notes “When the music dies, everything lulled to sleep opens its eyes and rises from its knees, fighting for release, fighting for relief, fighting…” Time signatures shift with a thwocking bootheel kick before unleashing a swirly, Flamenco-flavored guitar solo that lifts the song to another astral plane.
Downcast, thrummy guitar notes and fluid bass are juxtaposed by prickly, almost impish chords on “The Fireman.” Sarabeth’s sadness feels palpable, as longing for her father invades her subconscious: “I had a dream, in my room late at night, I was a child….and you said ‘I will always be your father, and you will always be my daughter, but I cannot bring you water, and there is no fire, you’re in a fever, you’re just tired.” Chiming guitars peel on the break temporarily alleviating the lyrical ache.
“At The Bar” is anchored by polychromatic guitars and thready bass. Trenchant lyrics offer a mordant meditation on the perils of instant success. As someone who was personally selected by Bob Dylan to open his shows on the strength of her debut record, she speaks from experience: “Overnight sensation in a day explodes away, the gamma rays explode in a flash, when your first breath is your last, you are such a child, whoever told you the beautiful things don’t die?” Luther adds harmonies to a couplet that feels like a sideways homage to Joni Mitchell’s epochal “Case Of You;” “If you’re looking for me, I’ll be at the bar.”
Meanwhile, “Smile For No One” is a tender treatise on missed connections. Feathery guitar riffs are offset by sinewy bass lines. Lyrics like “And when we are together, we dream we are apart, forever drifting between the light and dark,” paint a chiaroscuro portrait of lovers at a crossroads. By the song’s denouement, nothing feels resolved: “I know it’s hard to stay together, so says the balloon untethered, I am free now but it’s not better, and when we are apart, we dream we are together, forever drifting between the light and dark.”
A couple of tracks from the forthcoming Joan Of All, pop up, mid-set. “Sheep” is moodily elegant, serpentine guitars and wily bass reflect the song’s sense of longing and loss. Yearning lyrics, flanked by dissonant riffs, sketch out a phantasmagoric tableau: “The dream of tumbling sheep, black and white, thrown like dice, from the sky, from the sky, they land, they stand, in pairs and alone, stunned into silence, but free.”
Then there’s “The Living Room,” a sun-dappled sea shanty that blends willowy guitars and tensile bass lines. The lyrics attempt to parse the past and the results are mixed: “I put my life in the center of the room, I dim the lights on parts of the truth, I spin it round and around and around, past the parts that are wearing down.” Between each verse, Sarabeth adds a ragged, slightly guttural “ahh, uhh, ahh, ahh, ahh,” to underscore her febrile ennui. On the break, guitars shiver and spiral, latticing finger-picked licks that soar and swoop with a thrilling alacrity, quietly hugging the arrangement’s hair-pin curves. By the last verse, a night drive to the beach elicits an epiphany of sorts: “Go back home, try to love what you own, go home, try to love what you own.”
The set closes with the title-track from her second album, Get Well Soon. Brisk guitar chords shimmer with an autumnal grace encircling elastic bass lines. Sarabeth’s trilling vocals swoop and swoon as lyrics recount the eternal disconnect that occurs with the death of a parent. It’s only in retrospect that we acknowledge that this specific form of melancholy can cut to the quick: “I knew I was sad, I recognized it was bad, but now looking back I see my mind it was cracked/Crying to the gardener, underweight, in the street, hot with grief, begging please don’t cut my trees, please don’t take my trees…” Platitudes like “get well soon” are said with the best of intentions, but the effect feels hollow and empty. It’s a cathartic finish to captivating album.
While the spotlight shines primarily on Sarabeth’s technicolor voice and acoustic guitar, Luther and Jason create an intimate soundscape that is at once loose-limbed and nimble, playful and protean. This isn’t the album you put on to accompany some Spring cleaning or as background music at a dinner party. SBT commands your full attention. Live In Bergen is one of those records that reveal something new with each spin.
