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Article published Oct 28, 2005 Stykos' 'In the Earth's Fading Light' could be the best album this year
By Art Edelstein Arts Correspondent
If Kristina Stykos' new album "In the Earth's Fading Light" was on vinyl I'd have already worn it out. Luckily, it's a compact disk and should be good for a long time to come. Ever since I received a copy over a month ago it has been spinning in my car's CD player.
"Fading Light" is perhaps the best new album I have heard this year by anyone, and I'm a heavy consumer of music. Bruce Springsteen may have gotten all the hype for his latest effort "Devils and Dust," but for my money Stykos has written far better songs, delivered them with wonderful style, and can play the pants off of the King of Asbury Park.
What is surprising about this album is that it is the work of a full-time mother of three who says her main occupation is landscaping.
Stykos' name is anything but household, and she says she's not looking for a career in music. But I hope this review will encourage her to hit the road and bring her music to a much wider audience than Vermont can offer.
Stykos, who lives in Chelsea, has fashioned a guitar-based album of heartfelt songs and interesting instrumentals with Celtic and European overtones that are mature in content and composition. Her guitar playing, is confident, extremely well executed, and very engaging. The musicians who accompany her on most tracks in this 16-song album play with inspiration, and the caring they must feel for Stykos is palpable.
Now, here's the kicker. Stykos, who had released one poorly received vinyl album 16 years ago, did all the recording and production herself in her living room. This is an album that sounds so good that anyone not reading the liner notes would figure she used $10,000 microphones and hired the best studio that many thousands of dollars could buy. The lesson here is that good equipment goes only so far. What's really needed to produce a top-notch compact disk is excellent material, excellently performed.
Driving this CD is Stykos' guitar playing and her voice. The guitars are for the most part Froggy Bottoms, made in Newfane by her husband Michael Millard. This luthier must have truly been inspired by his marriage because these guitars sound gorgeous. Also, Stykos uses a very unusual tuning, one popularized by guitarist Ged Foley in the Irish band Patrick Street. "Open" or "alternate" tunings are the rage these days with acoustic guitarists, as they give a deep resonance to notes and chords. Stykos has made this particular tuning her own, and in rhythmic and melodic passages is able to get her guitar to be the dominant, but not dominating, instrument. She weaves in many guitar parts throughout so her instrument never sounds "canned" and predictable. She also plays mandolin and keyboard.
Her co-bandmates in the popular central Vermont group Bellatrix, Patty Casey and Susannah Blachley, contribute flute and viola and violin, respectively. Banjoist Bela Fleck, an early boyfriend of Stykos, joins on a few tracks along with ace piano accordianist Jeremiah McLane.
Another important instrument on this album is Stykos' voice. I wouldn't call her singing "pretty." Rather, she sings sometimes with a bit of a rasp, other times with a smokey quality to her voice like good bourbon going down smoothly. On occasion, she sounds as if she's just drunk a glass of the purest mineral water: pristine.
Each of the nine vocals has an interesting subject and lyrics. At age 47, this former live art music promoter who brought many fine folk acts to the Barre Opera House and the Wood Art Gallery, has had many relationships, met scores of interesting people and raised a family: all these experiences come out in her songs.
I particularly like the lines in the title track "In The Earth's Fading Light": "It's a matter of life/in the beak of a dove/It's a fountain of stars/Releasing their love/In the cascading light, I see you."
Stykos is also reflects on her previous loves. In "The Delaware Side" she writes: "It's not hard to explain/It's just hard to feel this pain/I was young, I was unafraid/Drawn like a moth to the flame."
My favorite lyric on this album is "Song To My Children." She offers this advice: "Children be wise, be strong, be driven/Open your eyes to what is hidden/Offer your tears like rain from heaven/Open your heart to what is given."
In an interview, she said she began writing songs for this album a year ago.
"I've been raising kids. …I kept writing music, but was not recording any of it and playing in my kitchen by myself," she said.
She said she owes a debt of gratitude to local Montpelier musicians, who play informally each week, for getting her back into music and teaching her what was required of a rhythm guitarist. "It was pivotal. I started to learn how to do a whole new kind of guitar playing — rhythm, accompaniment to fiddle tunes, Old Time and Celtic music. I wasn't in the spotlight, a singer songwriter. I was just part of the mix and it was a lot of fun."
She said she wrote 14 songs in a few months and started recording last January. She recorded on a home digital recording machine. "It was more important for me to stay at home and do it at my own pace then in a recording studio with expensive equipment," she said of the experience.
"That meant I had to learn how to run the equipment, which was a huge learning curve," she said.
She did get help with mixing and editing from Corin Nelsen, who works with Will Ackerman the famed guitarist who once owned Windham Hill Records and now lives in southern Vermont.
With such a fine sophomore album under her belt, Stykos has modest goals. She said she has no real plans to hit the folk music circuit to promote her album. "I would just like it to reach people whose hearts are looking for some inspiration," she said. "My goal is not to climb the ladder of singer/songwriter, but to play music and have fun."
"In the Earth's Fading Light" is available at local stores and at CDBaby.com.
Arthur Edelstein is a writer and musician in Woodbury.