Tiffany Anders
Funny Cry Happy Gift
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This is a bewitching and haunting album. The music evokes hints of Low with their sparse instrumentation or Tarnation with their rustic overtones, yet Tiffany’s voice and lyrics are her own. The songs are timeless, due to the way she documents relationships that have fallen apart. The music on this disc seems like it comes from another era. There are flourishes of electric guitar, and sometimes, I swear I hear a violin or fiddle slither across the soundscape for a brief moment. (All the while, the backbeat carries on like a pulse in your temples as you stare in your coffee and wonder what the hell happened last night?) I am not sure if Tiffany Anders is from the South, but the music on this disc documents the South. Not the South of the geographical United States, nor the South found on political maps. Rather, she speaks from the South that is carried within us. This is a place of foreboding, strangeness, and cryptic intent. The songs on this album document this place, far from your gaze in the well-worn places under the branches of the palmetto bush and tangles of kudzu. Essential listening for fans of roots rock or the writings of William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor.
