MUSIC REVIEW: CHRISSI POLAND - 'SONGS FROM THE CONCRETE'

An Amazing Voice Treats Music as a Gift, Not an Entitlement

By: Julia Albain

December 16, 2009

I’ve rewritten this opening line a million times. I’m trying to be clever, when all I really want to start with is the blinking exclamation that is in my head:  Chrissi Poland has pipes like you wouldn’t believe. I couldn’t get over her voice when I first heard her, and I can’t get over it still, after seeing her again live and listening to her new album, Songs from the Concrete.

A tiny, adorable, unassuming girl climbed on a small stage at The Red Lion in NYC one night to sit in for a set, and when she opened her mouth, everyone stopped. It isn’t just the fact that you don’t expect the voice to come from the girl (and Chrissi admits she enjoys the element of surprise a little), but she is also just entirely absorbing with her sound. It is the kind of voice that just doesn’t come around that often, and it makes people wake up and notice when they hear it. But that is just the beginning of this girl’s gift, and from talking to her, she really does receive it as a gift.After being stopped in my tracks by Chrissi Poland on that unassuming night at The Red Lion, I approached her about hearing more of her stuff and seeing a full live show.

A couple weeks later, I walked into Rockwood Music Hall to find Chrissi behind the piano, as smooth as could be. Then she was playing the guitar.  Then she was behind her drums. The whole show was like musical chairs with all of her band members…but Chrissi was always in. She is the kind of musician I love to hate a little bit because I just can’t understand how she can do it all. But you can’t hate this girl…she is so humble, grateful to her own music — as if it serves her more than she serves it.

Talking with Chrissi was a little like cheating — she pretty much wrote the article for me with her clever one-liners and responses to my questions about her journey and her process. We constantly found our way back to the fact that she swears by the truth that the music “chose her.” In the same way, she talked of how her songs, her playing, every moment behind an instrument is healing and empowering to her — the strongest and truest medicine she has in this life. She does what she does (and has been for over seven years now) because she doesn’t have a choice, and also because she needs it to bring peace in the midst of chaos. There was a strong humility in the attitude Chrissi had toward her music. I couldn’t help but feel as if it was a power in her life that she was still learning to harness — a gift that she was overjoyed with but never arrogantly entitled to.

She openly admitted that, at times, her songs drop into her lap so quickly that she doesn’t feel right taking credit for them. Other times, she is chipping away at a song she knows is there, working to tear away the excess so she can reveal the beauty. As she spoke, she gestured with her hands as if she was sculpting phrases and ideas in the air, and cocked her head at times as if to suggest that she didn’t exactly know where the answers were coming from…but they were coming.

“Songs From the Concrete” is a blissfully smooth yet powerful collection of stories-in-song that gives listeners an intimate glimpse into the psyche of Chrissi Poland. She is brutally honest and open, at times, with her lyrics; you can hardly keep your heart from breaking as you listen to her sing of her own broken heart. 

When I asked her about the music centering often around love, both lost and found, she gently shrugged and said she couldn’t help but write about the real stuff that was moving in her — in fact, the deeper she felt, the deeper the music would run. Her music is, and always has been, the easing of the pain. Chrissi said that no matter what, she is most centered, alive, and in her element when she is playing. “Everywhere else, I’m a mess!” she said.   Needless to say, the music certainly did choose her…and she’s in it now, for better or for worse.

“Songs From the Concrete” is looking at a massive release sometime in 2010, and meanwhile, Chrissi continues to service and explore the music, and play to her heart’s content whenever given the opportunity. 

She seems to be this vessel of sorts — she has enormous talent and unabashed, raw passion. The music literally moves through her, and she serves it well.  Chrissi Poland is an experience. I would dare almost anyone to not be moved by her work.

Chrissi Poland's 'Songs From The Concrete' will be released by Danben Records in May 2010.