First Impressions: From Nowhere by Mo Kenney

According to WordPress, this is my 1000th post. A fair number of missives predate the blog, however. When I launched it in July 2014, I populated the index with essays I contributed to the Hatboro-Horsham Patch from February 2012 through June 2014, plus uploaded two Facebook Notes. In the years since, I’ve also revived items written in the late 1990s and early 2000s for the original Old Grey Cat website. Still, the count’s the count. 1000. Wow. 

I can think of no better way of marking the moment than by spotlighting Mo Kenney’s From Nowhere, one of my favorite albums of the year. Out this Friday, it features a sound unbound by genre, lush and dreamy one moment and stark and dark the next. It’s one part Americana, one part indie pop, and all parts (aching) heart, weaving the hues and gradients of these things called life and love into a thick and rich tapestry. It’s catharsis set to song. 

The nine-track set opens with “Bad Times,” which finds Kenney longing for the days when alcohol obscured their issues. “I thought when you clean up life gets rich,” they sing, sharing a common sentiment about sobriety. Truth is, it’s only after the fog of addiction dissipates that one is able to survey the damage done. The richness comes later, after the crumbling roads and bridges—i.e. human connections—are repaired, strengthened and even, sometimes, replaced.

“Evening Dream,” for its part, could well be about a fling from those before days, when alcohol clouded judgment. It’s tinged with regret: “I’ve been having visions of you, seeing things that I don’t want to/Crawling into memories that bleed into my evening dreams/Bathing in the pale green light, no thought of what goes on outside/No thought of what it all might mean, it doesn’t have to mean a thing/Goodbye baby, we weren’t ready.” “Signs of Life” flips to the other side of recovery, when doubts about one’s ability to be loved linger like a cheap perfume.

The title track is an impressionistic remembrance worthy of Mary Cassatt that hides sorrow beneath a seemingly innocuous veneer: “There’s a path in the lawn/That takes you to the pond/Black water cold and deep/Hiding what is beneath.” “Honey Come Home” dives into the black morass to reveal what lingers below: loneliness. The song could well be about a partner’s weekend away or a lover who’s left for good: “I’m waiting by the phone/This is a kind of torture like I have never known/There’s a cardinal on the line/And he’s singing day and night/I thought his message was of love, his love is just a lie.”

“Self-Doubt” delves into the nagging insecurities that grow stronger with every passing year, when the goals we set for ourselves—some ambitious, some not—no longer seem to be within reach: “I used to think I knew what life had in store/When I close my eyes, I don’t go there no more.” In a similar fashion, “That’s Not Me” explores the disconnect between how we and others see ourselves, while “With You” explores the fallout: the end of a relationship. As with “Evening Dream,” Kenney expresses no ill will for the other or themselves. “Maybe in another life I’ll reconcile my heart and mind,” they sing, recognizing that, sometimes, we see in the other what we want to see. The album closes with the gentle “Love You Better,” in which they acknowledge the distance that’s developed between them and their lover, ex or not, and vows to do better.

From Nowhere matches artful melodies to wistful lyrics that trade in self-reflection,  musing about life, love and recovery. I’d say that it’s a therapy session pressed to wax, and I suppose I just did—but it’s much more than that. To borrow the final stanza of Denise Levertov’s “Everything That Acts Is Actual”:

The black moon
turns away, its work done. A tenderness,
unspoken autumn.   
We are faithful
only to the imagination. What the
imagination
             seizes
as beauty must be truth. What holds you
to what you see of me is
that grasp alone.

It’s a great album. Don’t miss it.