Marina Allen ★★★★
Steve Gullick
Eight Pointed Star
FIRE. CD/DL/LP
The LA-based songwriter’s third LP ponders the limits of reality.
“Love is sitting in your beloved’s loneliness and letting it be/Letting the truth unravel it amazes you, well that’s love to me.” On Deep Fake, Marina Allen muses on how technology affects our sense of reality. While musically the context is familiar (hints of Joni Mitchell’s Blue come to the fore), lyrically Allen’s world is strikingly idiosyncratic and kaleidoscopic. With its title referring to a compass, Eight Pointed Star suggests a journey as a metaphor for creativity and self-discovery. Hence, the theme of ancestry is explored on Red Cloud, invoking spirits of the past with vocals and melody that stream down like rivulets. Still, this is not an escapist record. Allen confronts contemporary phenomena such as artificial intelligence and social media. Placed in the modern setting and told in the universal language of folk music, her tales all ring true.