Album Review: Lisa Mitchell - Bless This Mess

Providence, the opening track of Lisa Mitchell's second album, builds above a simple piano motif, Mitchell's whisper soon augmented by a crowd of voices. And from there she takes her cue. Mitchell's voice has a beautiful sweet strain; it's a whisper with the gale force of wind.

Spiritus, released as a single/EP earlier in the year to stoke the fire, is still pop gold; the indecipherable charming mess of Mitchell's bubbling-brook vocals, and the Graceland-era Paul Simon-channelling scatterbrained euphoria of it all. And it's in fine company with equally jubilant tracks like So Much To Say (which features a wonderful harpsichord segment); The Raven And The Mushroom Man; and the surprisingly rollicking ode to NYC, Pretty Thing; as well as another ghost from the Spiritus EP, Diamond In The Rough.

Dann Hume's role as producer cannot be overlooked, nor understated – Mitchell has a beautifully quirky and unique voice, and songwriting chops to boot (she can turn more than her fair share of phrases brimming with whimsy and wit, and doles out dreamy, expansive takes on ditties), but Hume's skills in the studio allow the rest of the music to match the fantasy of Mitchell's musical horizons. The instrumentation is wonderfully expansive; the harpsichord and horns on So Much To Say, the sitar in The Present… An eight-minute jam that seems the perfect accompaniment to The Present ends the album, a spaced out, floating and ethereal vocal exploration (once again, the lyrics are damned-near impossible to decipher, but the angelic qualities of Mitchell's voice beset that fact) set atop slowly morphing chords and White Album-esque rambling drums.

Mitchell has long been quaint, unassuming even, but Bless This Mess is anything but.