Dorothy Carter | Waillee Waillee
(Palto Flats Records/Putojefe Records)
Deep local elders may recall New York-born musician Dorothy Carter (1935-2003) from her time at Bard College or as part of the Woodstock scene during the 1970s (her "Song of the Hemp" is the highlight of 1975's seminal Woodstock Moods and Moments compilation). A specialist in hammered dulcimer who doubled on harp, psaltery, flute, piano, and vocals, Carter played with experimental composer Robert Rutman's Central Maine Power Music Company ensemble and is today regarded as a principal, pioneering figure of psychedelic folk music. This beautiful reissue of her starkly bewitching 1978 second album includes an illustrated booklet of liner notes and testimonials by Rutman, family members, and a selection of fans and followers that includes luminaries like Laraaji and Einstürzende Neubaten's Alexander Hacke.
A devoted music historian, Carter was a living, performing repository of Appalachian and Celtic folk song, and Waillee Waillee features several of her magical interpretations of pieces from those canons. "The Squirrel is a Funny Thing," an arcane American folk song, opens to set the sparse mood with Carter's instrument cascading like rain on a metal roof, while the lament "Along the River," with words borrowed from James Joyce, hovers like mysterious mist on a grey Dublin day. It's hard to pick a favorite track as this review is being written, but the LP's ethereal side-enders, "Summer Rhapsody" and "Tree of Life," are certainly among the most transcendent moments of this uniformly transcendent album, a masterpiece that will live well on your quiet, early morning turntable in the winter weeks.
