Reviews

Artist:Spencer LaJoye
Album: Shadow Puppets
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.spencerlajoye.com/

A Boston-based, lapsed-Christian but spiritual, trans/gender non-binary queer indie-folk singer-songwriter and classically trained violinist (though Sav Buist shares duties here) from Southwest Michigan who previously traded as Jenny LaJoye, this is their first full-length album under their new name, a collection of childhood memories, family patterns, shame, and desire forming the characters in this journey of a formerly closeted queer kid. The title was chosen because "so many of the songs seemed to capture shadows from my past in sort of whimsical, friendly ways", putting a distance between things.

The waltzing strings swept title track opens proceedings, a breezily light number that displays her Broadway musical vocals and a hint of Janis Ian as she sings "That shadow is big, that shadow is wide/It's a darkness I could fit my whole self inside/But when I pull away, away from the flame/it's a shape I can make with my hand/Just a woman sinking in sand/Just a monster I can understand" and of childhood as "Just an addict playing the piano/And a kid praying up to the stars/As a mother looks at her shadows/And can't understand who they are".

'Chaotic Neutral' picks up the tempo and folk pop colours with another childhood memory, "I got some paint on the wall next to the bookcase/I was a kid, but hell if I didn't know to hide it with a white lie/I spilled red wine on a white shag rug one night/It was an Airbnb, and I tried everything, but the morning came and I had to leave", the song treating on hiding things and coming to terms with who you are ("This college coach said when I felt turned on, to keep notes/I was a kid, but hell if I didn't know to fight it, give a shy smile") and "Wreaking just a little bit of havoc/I can't handle that in practice/5 Hail Marys, 4 Our Fathers/self-prescribed for sabotage" and accepting that "it's a part of you, so/what's a little paint on the wall, a stain on the carpet is all". The push and pull of teenage desire and the pain that it brings is beautifully captured in The Art Of Feeling Lonely' ("I summon her with lilies/put some Kleenex in the pew/Close my eyes and hum Amazing Grace/I see her in the doorway/And it feels just like the truth…She starts to acquiesce/And wraps me in her dress/It's so sweet/She gets a bit possessive/Should scare me half to death/But if it doesn't break my heart/It wasn't worth a thing"), the idea that how do you know it's love it doesn't hurt when it's gone.

Confused sexuality, family, God and music seem to be the foundations of their formative years. A memory of her brother the scampering 'Good Man' recalls "That one Christmas, I was going on 18/A secondhand mandolin addressed to me, beneath the tree/We ran off to the piano room, you sat down at the keys/And said 'it's simple, loosen up, and follow me'" and of " that birthday when I tried a coke and rum/You caught my eye and made a bottle with your fingers and your thumb/I know you know I got your signal, and I acted like I didn't/And when you texted, I pretended not to get it". The lyric also has them asking "What if God is not the answer?", an adolescent LaJoye having fronted a worship cover band called "Jesus Rocks", attended a Christian Reformed Church affiliated college, being a chapel worship leader and switching to a religious major before developing feelings for their best friend and questioning the Bible teachings on queer sex and eventually renouncing and coming out to their parents.

Elsewhere memories of family dinners with the parents inform the dreamy sway 'How Are You' ("Too many "how are yous" to lie to/Too many answers to believe"), the bass throbbing Suzanne Vega-urgent 'Reverie' talks of shy crushes ("What are the chances you would be here/In my coffee shop/What's a cool way to ask you/If you come here a lot?") , the sparsely strummed 'Convents', a duet with " Spencer Mackey, recalls how friendships grow apart ("How did your bed get smaller since the last time I stayed over…If you showed up at my door, and said, "Let's join a convent," I know that I would/And it wouldn't be good") while, graced by cello and another with Ian shades, on 'The Joker' they sing " I learned early that it hurts/To be outed, so I out myself first/So I control the narrative, stay ahead of it" but "If I am the joker, I can't be the joke/If I plant it, I can't be the seed". An early awkward flirtation with heterosexuality is recalled in 'Serial' ("I feel a hand around my waist and he smiles at me/I kinda like it later when I feel that hand around my throat/I can tell he feels alive and he's been wanting it, so I'll make his heart beat if it kills me, take this gospel on the road/I'll sell a smile, say I bought it with my soul"), the title prompting the line "You ask which part of me's the killer, which part's the cop".

The dreamily wistful 'Someday You'll Wake Up Okay' is a message to their younger self that life will get better ("So many ways to hide yourself/Trade a costume in, pick another out…I see you smiling on the corner by the Dunkin/You're not having any fun, and honestly
Neither is anyone/You won't believe me/So I think it from the car/I know it seems so far/
But it's possible, whatever happens/You're gonna be alright") while 'Surgery' speaks of self-acceptance ("Read a book for my inner untamed little girl…I'm coming back to my body/I don't love it, yet, but dammit, I'm trying/Every mirror gets kinder to me/But I know, I know what I need").

It ends with the halting piano ballad 'Forgiveness' feeling like one of those alone in the spotlight Broadway songs that, as mortality encroaches, looks back on the narrative of the characters' lives ("As your curtain falls/In a care home or big city hospital/If you haven't given it yet to me/I'll let you keep it all"), of the things we lose in the way we act ("Some people have a lot/Just slips through our fingers like salt and water/Out of his eyes as he strikes his daughter and his only son resembles his father/We give it away before hearing "I'm sorry"), closing with the emotional compassion of "At the end, if you're poor and I'm rich and there's time/I'll give you some of mine".

A reflective confessional, a hymn to humanity and letter to self that looks to the past to find peace and acceptance in the present, a sprinkling of Ian and Tracy Chapman, this deserves to be on those year-end best of lists.

Mike Davies

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