
German chanteuse Niobe is named for the Ancient Greek mythological character who was brought to ruin by Apollo and Artemis. She would pridefully boast at mothering 14 children compared to the relative infertility of Letos and her aforementioned twins. Our Niobe’s music links to the mythology in the strong, emotive nature of her voice, and in the hints at the depth and literariness of the entangled loyalties in her lyrics which, in the singer-songwriter tradition, is where much of the action on Blackbird’s Echo takes place.
Musically, the album is all over the place. Starting out with a couple of acoustic pop tracks, Niobe then veers through glitch, trip-hop, jazz-band kitsch, torch song and electronica, with mixtures of each always a possibility. What holds everything together is Yvonne Cornelius’ voice, in both uses of the word. Her timbre can act like a muted brass instrument, cutting through clearly. At times she can sound like a 1950s exotica queen, at others she is processed into a dark jazz mistress and at still others a subtle bluesy grit veers forth. “I told you/You have a gift/It was knowing how not to take life too seriously/You have a way of sitting back and looking at your silly worries/I know you…” she meanders, almost Nico-esque in ‘You Have A Gift’ and you cannot help but be drawn into the personal storytelling Cornelius unfolds. ‘Time Is Kindling’ pits shards of ricocheting television noise samples against self-evaluation – “What’s my expiration date?”. ‘Fever’ is not the Peggy Lee standard but explores some meandering 60s pop moods before settling into a cruisy shuffle. ‘Ava Gardener At The Swimming Pool’ is woozy oompah fusing sloppiness and prettiness at every opportunity. ‘Blue Wolf’ finishes with warm guitar drone fuzz and freaked out vocal effects.
Five albums into a career you might expect an artist to have settled into a niche. Niobe is taking no such comfortable options. She works as a bower bird, grabbing any sounds or styles that takes her fancy, then subjugating it to her consistent songwriting. Blackbird’s Echo is the attraction of the pop structure applied to the resonances of a century of diverse musical styles.
Adrian Elmer
