It’s Indigo Girls month at the Bluegrass Situation, and it’s hard to talk about that dynamic duo without addressing one of the most potent components of their magic: harmony. It’s one of music’s most primal things — no instruments needed, just voices ringing together in a mysterious pattern that sounds perfect but takes true mastery to actually perfect. Few do it as well as Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, who meld themselves like two bodies of water intersecting, yet somehow retain their own individual clarity along the way. A good harmony is true wizardry to the ears. It really is.
Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae’s debut duets LP, Tell Me True, is dedicated to the magnetism of those harmonies. Romantic partners in life and craft, they blend their vocals in both natural and unexpected combinations, volleying in a seamless game with lyrics that chart their life, love and struggles together. “Just Pleasing You,” a sparse and strikingly beautiful ode to what we leave behind to follow a romance — the good, the ugly, the staggered parts of ourselves — is built on Chisel and Denae’s ability to lace their words around each other in that magical way, teetering together with just some simple guitar to pull it all along. “Just pleasing you, is the last thing I’ll do,” they sing, the melody moving and the key escalating with each breath. Pleasing each other, but our ears, too … true wizardry, indeed.
