Julie Doiron
Woke Myself Up
Jagjaguwar
There really aren’t many music artists out there who are so skilled at championing life’s mundane moments as Julie Doiron. Over the span of her solo career she’s moved from sad-core’s morose self-analysis to mulling over and enjoying her daily life of motherhood and marriage. On the introductory title track the first lines she sings are “I woke myself up to rest my weary head/ from all the work I’d done in those dreams I had/ like weeding the garden all night…” She goes on to describe her nightly ritual of watching her children sleep and she does so with an air of contentment. Doiron keeps her subject matter and her attitude toward it far from dotting housewife territory. “Don’t Wanna Be/ Liked By You” is an assertive declaration that lives up to its title, while “Dark Horse” features Doiron casually tossing off the lines, “I’m writing you with all my heart/ to tell you that I don’t belong here… bye bye.” It’s a refreshing antithesis to the obnoxious rock star bravado and posturing of riot grrl while avoiding the preciousness usually associated with the girl-and-a-guitar genre.
Musically, this disc stacks up most closely with Doiron’s definitive statement Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars, the realization of her songs more often than not have a shambling, thoroughly charming quality to them, but here, working with her former Eric’s Trip band mate Rick White there are more steady flashes of focus. It’s definitely a more structured piece on the whole than her glowingly lo-fi last album, Goodnight Nobody, and its contributions from the Swedish-via-France trio Herman Dune.
Like the rest of her catalog, Woke Myself Up might not be arresting from first listen, but it’ll have longevity, outlasting whatever hipster hubris is garnering the lion’s share of attention these days.
Jagjaguwar Records: http://www.jagjaguwar.com
