Julie Christensen – The Price We Pay for Love (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 49:01 minutes | 522 MB | Genre: Folk, Singer-Songwriter, Female Vocal
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Wirebird Records
Julie Christensen’s story is woven into decades of Roots Music. A veteran of Leonard Cohen’s bands, she co-fronts post- punk rockers Divine Horsemen, which rebooted to release new work in 2021. While the pandemic was still going on, Julie moved from Nashville to NM and began the 2+ year process of recording “The Price We Pay for Love,” out 4/14/2023 on WireBird Records.Nearly 30 years after his first album, Gordon should be better known, as should Christensen, who was a staple in the Los Angeles punk and jazz scenes before her extraordinary collaborations with Leonard Cohen, and then a solo career. But these things happen. Now comes a record that adroitly fuses Christensen’s exploratory vocals with Gordon’s vividly drawn emotional and physical landscapes. The result brings out the best in both of them, especially in the way Christensen unearths veins of gold that were hiding in plain sight.
While it’s difficult to highlight a single track, I keep returning to “Joey and Clara” and “Jimmy Reed Is the King of Rock n’ Roll.” The former lays out adolescent childhood like no other song I’ve heard, Clara enticing Joey to brave the brambles and barbed-wire fences to seek out the joys of a summer day that lay otherwise hidden in a forest. The latter is a lament about the largely forgotten bluesman. On both tracks, as well as the album as a whole, Sergio Webb’s dobro has a haunting, welcome presence.
Glide Magazine premiered “Find My Way,” the lead off track. They had this to say:
“GLIDE is excited to premiere her rendition of “Find My Way,” which serves as the first track on the album and rightfully so. Christensen exudes soul as she absorbs the song and presents it in her own fashion. Compared to Gordon’s version, which is a slowburning roots rocker, Christensen gives it a bluesy Southern rock treatment that brightens the track even more. Her vocals get amplified by greasy slide guitar and even more soloing than the original, ultimately giving the track a full sound that truly showcases just how great of a songwriter Gordon is while also putting her vocals in the spotlight.”
Tracklist:
1-01. Julie Christensen – Hejira (07:09)
1-02. Julie Christensen – Goldbridge Road (05:13)
1-03. Julie Christensen – The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (03:24)
1-04. Julie Christensen – How He Lost Her (04:49)
1-05. Julie Christensen – Save Your Love for Me (03:50)
1-06. Julie Christensen – A Remark You Made (05:49)
1-07. Julie Christensen – All the River (05:21)
1-08. Julie Christensen – Away with Words (05:41)
1-09. Julie Christensen – Can’t Find My Way Home (03:47)
1-10. Julie Christensen – Hilltop (03:54)
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