‘Are You in Love?' Review: Basia Bulat’s folk-tinged new album is an ode to the highs and lows of love
Canadian folk singer-songwriter Basia Bulat released her latest album 'Are You in Love?' on March 27 via Secret City Records. The new record is her fifth studio album and follows 'Good Advice' which released in 2016. Jim James of the rock band My Morning Jacket produced 'Good Advice' and has joined forces on the new album as well.
At a time when Bulat both fell in love and lost her father, she took a moment to return home to Montreal before returning to recording at Hi-Dez Studios in Joshua Tree. In a statement, Bulat shared her aim to find some sort of beauty in a period of such extreme duality. “Throughout this whole record, I was struggling between keeping it together and letting go, between holding onto old narratives or accepting what's before me", she was quoted as saying in an official press release.
“I want to make a really beautiful record about compassion,” she wrote to James.
On the new album, it is evident that Bulat takes a step back perceiving love, a 13-track moment of both analysis and conception while giving glimpses of emotional collapse in between. While Bulat reveals her pains, she also applies her own nurturing mother's touch to herself: a caress to the face while mentoring the listener on the highs and lows of love.
On 'Are You in Love?', the title track of the album, we see Bulat struggle with the idea of moving forward in her love. A sense of pain dawns in on the folk ballad opening as Bulat sings, "First comes your fear. Your laughter and tears. Then you shout. When you need a name for your doubt. You know what’s happening." Yet it seems she already found a solution which she draws from "One voice you hear in a crowd."
'Are You in Love?' abides in the idea of leaving a note in time, whether the note is for Bulat's fans or simply for her to return to where she marked a sense of beauty in this audio diary. Bulat uses the term "light" in 'Light Years' as both an expression of the freeing weightlessness of looking back at fonder years, found in lyrics "Do you remember your dancing days? Nights when you would stay out 'til dawn. Starstruck and young. When you thought that you could know. What's here and what is already gone" and in looking into the unforeseeable future, light years ahead.
It's easy to sink into the peaceful feelings that come with this album such as the carefree acoustic guitar sway on 'Homesick', the dreamy euphoria of 'Electric Roses' and the lighthearted jingle 'Hall of Mirrors'. Bulat leaves 'Love is at the End of the World' as the album's closing track just as she reaches the end of her love diary with a callout to her lover. Probably the most powerful track on the album, the song elevates its emotions for the closing triumphant moments with its trilled piano melody and distorted guitar solo.
'Are You in Love?' presents a beautiful mix of emotions, between tender slow-burners to pure folk bliss and comes recommended for those contemplating their own need for compassion and peaceful resolutions.