Tara Jane O’Neil – The Cool Cloud of Okayness (Orindal Records) – Been listening to this album on and off for days and days now, ever since Thalia Zedek pointed it out via social media, I knew of Rodan, but not of all her (vast catalogue of) solo work and everything else. Seems like there some catching up to do.

“TJO is a multi-instrumentalist,composer,producer and visual artist. She creates melodic and experimental music under her own name and in collaboration with other musicians, dancers and filmmakers. As a solo artist she has released 10 full-length albums. A founding member of Rodan and guest player for countless others, TJO has performed around the world at DIY spaces, festivals and the Pompidou”.

That gentle glowing throb of Seeing Glass is just gorgeous, second track in and it does just gently nail things in some kind of way that demands you stick around and explore the (cool) cloud formations properly, that you give the album time to reveal the detail, the quiet warmth, the considered beauty of it all, the slow moving quietness of things that have all the time in the world to take us where. we or she need to go.  

“Transformation is what happens in the hinge between before and after. A house burns down and is rebuilt again, persons become spirit, known worlds break apart and fall together again. Tara Jane O’Neil’s new album, The Cool Cloud of Okayness, was written amidst the skirmishes and shuffle of the seven years since her self-titled album (although there has been a fascinating array of collaborations, tributes, rarities, and experiments released in the interim). Recorded by TJO at her home studio in Upper Ojai, California, a studio built on the ashes of the home lost to the Thomas Fire”.

Without really knowing the circumstance, this is a beautiful album, a thoughtful set of works,  clear, cool, refreshing, no not obviously refreshing, that’s not quite the right word and the start to Fresh End is so beautifully powerful. This isn’t an easy album in terms of finding the words, the best art never is, it is an easy album to listen to though, to enjoy, to just go with, flow with, it is refreshing but that really isn’t the right word…  

“Many of The Cool Cloud of Okayness’s nine tracks were developed in the time between the wildfire and the rebuilding, between lockdown and reopening. TJO, her partner (dancer, choreographer and frequent collaborator) Jmy James Kidd and their dog sheltered from the storms in the high desert of Southern California and the deep suburbs of Louisville, KY. In these locales were discovered the improvised bass guitar figures to Kidd’s dance which transformed into songs during pandemic isolation, then brought to the ensemble of drummer/percussionist Sheridan Riley (of Alvvays), multi-instrumentalist Walt McClements, and on a couple, guitarist Meg Duffy (of Hand Habits). They build and gleefully destroy and rebuild again. There is joy in the ensemble’s shared queer identity- an identity that refuses to be agreed upon. This record too challenges any easy genre or definition. This record is sculpture and portrait of times and loved ones gone past. It is spiritual and it is psychedelic. TJO’s deft production and rock-solid bass playing hold the centre, and her spectral guitar and singing voice carry the message”.

Good bits keep gliding by, it is is a bit like watching clouds, Two Stones starts so beautifully and once again demands, in a quite way, that you listen in that way you would (almost privately stand and) watch clouds – and here she stands, beguiling rhythms, the seedlings indeed, the gentle hope rising, a torch, joyful torch songs than are never that obvious about being so, – “for joy is a form of fight, we bright.” This a a beautiful album, it does feel like the first signs of green growth and new life in the black ashes, it is refreshing but that isn’t quite the right word and I can’t find the ones that are. The is a gorgeous album, give it the time it deserves, take the time to let it find you, you will be rewarded… (sw)

Bandcamp / www.tarajaneoneil.com