Music For The Cold Months Of Winter: Brindl's SHINE

Music is the great song of existence and it conjures forth complex visuals. One could view listening to music like taking a little journey to a psychedelic plane, without the drugs and the subsequent nasty come down. Consider music a good clean high, activating parts of the brain where pretty pictures accommodate the sounds that enter the ears.

I slipped Brindl’s second fabulous CD, Shine, into my stereo, adjusted my earphones to achieve a maximum flow of sound and I pressed play. As the sound flooded my ears and fueled my imagination I found myself transported to a sunny hillside in the middle of the time of year where Spring is transforming into Summer. The sky is blue, the clouds are wispy and I could see rabbits and dragons curling their ears and tails against the meadowy backdrop as the spirit of song gently wafted towards my from the inner recesses of my blissed-out psyche.

Shine is a languid river of beauty trickling past as you sit on this hillside. Shine is a warm breeze flowing over your sun kissed face. Shine is the sun, warm and stunning, bright and vibrant, opening you up to the possibility that someone understands your heart as much as you do and can put into lyrics exactly how you feel when you open your heart to loving yourself, fully and deeply.

Brindl’s powerful and heartfelt lyrics are showcased in this disc; the lyrics bring forth her excellent musicianship on the piano and guitar throughout all of Shine. Adding Steve Gardner on Violin (Cullen’s Hounds), guitarist Adam Roach (Jon Keigwin Band) and bassist David Solari gives Shine an added depth of jazz and blues undertones that allows Brindl’s smoky-smooth voice to seduce you with a sound that is nothing but pure joy to behold.

“Mercy” opens the disk with piano and violin, two instruments that seem innocent enough but when fueled by Brindl’s passionate blues/jazz vocals brings into focus the darker aspects of a relationship. “I am Here” and “Rose and a Smile” shed a little joy on the lighter side of relationship.

Simplicity is the key to Brindl’s Shine. But within that simplicity comes a profound understanding of the heart. The simplicity of stark and simple music leaves us open to understand the music how we need to understand it. Brindl leaves the music open for us to determine how it should affect our lives, as all good songwriters can do with their words. Brindl’s voice brings to life the words she wants to convey. Her lilting and uplifting vocals dance and sway and take you on a ride into the clouds, to be stirred and tossed with soft femininity.

Recorded locally at A Room With A Vu studio in San Anselmo throughout most of 2010, Brindl has taken the words and truths that live in her heart and manifested them into a beautiful album. She bares her soul and tells you her experiences in her life, telling stories of her heart so we can all learn from her mistakes and her personal lessons on love.

The ending track of Shine is “Resolution Year.” A track that I took to mean that, with determination and focus on oneself, things can only be amazing. “Resolution year, dissolution of all fear….and I can hear you now…loud and clear….” 

All photos Trevalyan Markle, Tenetphoto.com, 2010

Moonmama Tells It Like It Is!

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