cd A week after their annual Valentine’s Day show, Devon Sproule and Paul Curreri sit side-by-side at Café Cubano, looking mostly at each other while they speak with me about their new records, to be released a week apart at Gravity Lounge (March 17 and 23, respectively). Before the two set off for lunch, Curreri asks me: “Have you listened to our other records?
 Sample Old Virginia Block on Devon Sproule’s new CD Keep Your Silver Shined: |
The following week, Sproule leaves me with a pile of CDs, including Keep Your Silver Shined, her follow-up to 2003’s sparse, intimate Upstate Songs. Silver is also, according to Sproule, her “getting married album,” which is appropriate, because the record evokes those four essential pieces of matrimonial fare—something old, new, borrowed and blue. By bringing in a range of guest musicians, Sproule updates her hushed first album while recalling the music styles that so obviously influenced her. John Winn’s breathy clarinet pairs with Matty Metcalfe’s accordion on “Let’s Go Out” and “Does the Day Feel Long” and gives Sproule’s songs a new direction by recalling the whimsical feel of early jazz.
The pleasure of Sproule’s singing is in her delivery, and she takes care to match it to the arrangement of her tunes to make her poetry more vivid. Silver opens with “Old Virginia Block,” in which Sproule’s images of “a shiny red violin” (echoed by Lasko’s jaunty fiddle) and “dead beat brown grass and the packed dirt” are reinforced by Sproule and Lasko’s choices to take the scenic route to the center of their notes.
But Sproule’s record is no departure from her earlier tunes; rather, Sproule’s life between albums has offered her a wealth of music knowledge that she flawlessly handpicks to fit her writing. On the record’s title track, Sproule lists her everyday joys—drinking with friends, “a felt hat collection, a dresser to put my pants in”—then asks, “What more could a woman want?” Instead of letting her list end, Sproule adds to it—”I want an overhaul for my guitar, a claw foot tub and a shiny car…to wait and take my time, all my time, to keep my silver shined.” Sproule’s appetite for music of all styles and instruments of all tones make Keep Your Silver Shined an immaculate record of giant steps, yes—but it is also a new bag of tricks that make her old favorites more of a joy.
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 Give Devon a spin: Keep Your Silver Shined will be released on March 17. |
