Blueberry Karma Clear
(Independent)
Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Gwen Snyder formed the music collective Blueberry in 1999 as a vehicle to present her original songs. Along the way, she lent backup vocals to the likes of Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner, jazz great Don Byron, 1980s new wavers Tears for Fears, Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brand New Heavies singer N'Dea Davenport, and David Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, among others. Now firmly ensconced in the Hudson Valley in the town of Saugerties, where she lives with her husband, coproducer Kenny Siegal, who recorded the album at his Old Soul Studios in Catskill, Snyder channels all those influences and more into her highly personal style of psychedelic soul.
Her floating, echoey, intimate vocals, sometimes multi-tracked and subtly electronically manipulated, lend an ethereal effect to Blueberry's jazz-fusion vamps on keyboards, wind instruments, horns, and stinging guitars, all propelled along by a heavy rhythm section that emphasizes the funk. Snyder calls her music "faerie funk," and Blueberry's arrangements emphasize her voice, not only to provide meaning but as the lead instrument in the multitextured ensemble. The result sometimes sounds like Laura Nyro fronting the legendary Hudson Valley-born group Steely Dan. "Lover's Etiquette" opens with a groove and guitar riff that recalls Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do With It." As heard on Karma Clear, none of the musical lines and phrases are filler—everything sounds well thought out and arranged for maximum emotional impact.
