Kala Farnham – “Your Spirit is a Work of Art”

There are no other current artists out that sound quite like Kala Farnham. Over the past decade, her ceaseless presence in the northern Connecticut music network has shown her to be one of the region’s most unique talents, and this album is no exception. Her newest release is a sweet, flowing expedition of both emotional and whimsical catharsis, and one that demands to be listened to with full attention.

As always, Farnham’s musicianship is of particular note. A multi-instrumentalist, she navigates piano, acoustic guitar, harp, and other of her many tools with ease. Her piano work on this album provides the basis of her more upbeat melodies, bouncing and tumbling through long phrasings of chord progressions that are indicative of a musician who spends a significant amount of time writing, planning, editing, and trying out new variations of melodies. Each of the supporting instruments offer perfectly written foundations for each song’s shifting mood, whether it is a barely noticeable application of upright bass after a long period without, or a sudden infusion of mandolin. It is clear that Farnham has a specific vision in mind when she is arranging a song, and each is executed to its fullest potential here on Your Spirit is a Work of Art.

At the heart of this album is Farnham’s consistently cinematic storytelling. The current of this collection’s lyrical journey runs in the same veins as the works of great folk songwriters of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Through the first three songs in particular, I was often pleasurably reminded of James Taylor and his knack for matching the stories of his lyrics to the musical aesthetic created by instrumentation and vocal tone. This is no easy feat, as any musician will attest to, and as Farnham’s stories transition from song to song, listeners will find themselves transported to a comfortable space from which to watch these stories unfold. The subject characters of the album’s first half are particularly compelling, weaving through a coming of age tale, observing the ghosts of one’s memories, and a longing for human connections during times of isolation. There is something like compassion undeniably embedded in Farnham’s smooth vocal tone, and the stories included in these songs are all the more relatable for it. In the back half of the album, we are presented with lyrical territory defined more by musings on life and its inhabitants – note the song titles’ frequent mentions of seemingly fragile but flight-worthy creatures. Persistent from start to finish are the concepts of wading through adversity to realize one’s inherent value, and accepting our individuality as beauty. As she opens her final track, “I don’t care if you’ve got a degree / I don’t care if you work or live for free / What you weigh or what you wear / I am glad that you are here at all.” These are warm ideas worthy of the weaving and soaring mood Farnham crafts with the decidedly warm instrumentation and carefully crafted melodies.

What Kala Farnham has created here is the musical equivalent of a respected author’s short story collection, and listeners will find a similar journey of immersion and discovery during their exploration of Your Spirit is a Work of Art.

— Review by Ben Zacarelli (musician, producer, audio engineer)