Thursday, October 17, 8 p.m.
Rozz-Tox, 2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island IL
Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Greta Ruth brings her strain of lush, progressive folk to the Rozz-Tox stage on October 17.
Ruth's self-provided biography provides much to chew on in the context of her project. It starts off with the dyads of “poem & tone. guitar & voice. language & harmony.” The simplicity of these concepts undersells an underlying complexity here, as the “guitars” in question move far beyond the boundaries of typical singer/songwriter fare, stretching into luminous, open-tuned arrangements flecked with jazzy chords and pure-toned, bell-like accents. Her compositions flit between what could be described as bright-eyed atonality, with atypical harmonic structures that aren’t afraid to sink into the realms of dissonance. At the same time, her sugary sweet vocal delivery shepherds her tracks closer to the world of mainstream indie-pop – all elided vowels and beautiful, descending cadences.
Though The Quiet While, her EP from late-2018, only contains four songs under three minutes long, it offers up a sizable buffet of ideas and unconventional melodies to chew on. As much as her vocal work commands attention, her guitar playing sits at center stage here. Utterly bizarre chords that flirt with modal tonalities and discordance stack together into strange progressions that seem to offer no hint at what might come next. Take EP closer “A World Perhaps,” a slight, two-minute track that manages to cram in a stunning number of on-a-dime transitions between moods. Though performed on acoustic guitars, her mosaic-like harmonic patterns contain moments of baroque ingenuity that wouldn’t feel out of place on a math rock record. She has the chops to back up her ambitious ideas, and the resulting tracks never feel showy for their own sake. Instead, it seems like she’s pouring out the fruits of some internal conflict that could only manifest in heavily adorned, labyrinthine harmonies.
Newer material captured on the lovely, two-song EP Amor Fati, released in June of 2019, contextualizes Ruth's breathtaking guitar work with an even faster pace of dynamic melodic ideas and chord structures. EP opener “For A Moment the Lie Became Truth” channels the progressive pastoral work of open-tuned fingerpicking masters such as James Blackshaw. Even within the span of the song's first 20-or-so seconds, we’re treated to a winding lattice of chord shapes and concordant upper-register melodies, all performed with a fretting hand that must be curved into improbably knotted claws to hit all these notes. The instrumental track demands multiple listens to catch all of the nuances on display, from its sharp hammer-on leads and the thick, low end bass notes that move in close tandem with the upper register.
In a guitar landscape in which open tunings can often feel like easy shortcuts to unearned mysticism or complexity, Ruth brings a surprisingly gentle touch to her complicated compositions. Her careful attention to dynamics allows her tracks to sink into brief reveries before awakening back into steadily picked rhythms, and the artist's sense of constant tonal juxtaposition yields songs that seem to slide between disparate emotions with each measure. The Amor Fati title track gathers energy as Ruth frequently picks between the same note on two different strings, generating a kind of static bounce that serves as a momentary waiting room between the lusher harmonies on either side. The sum total of her work manages to channel the majesty of progressive English folk such as Pentangle, the fluid raga forms of the departed fingerpicking icon Jack Rose, and the casual jazzy folk bend of such younger songwriters as Ryley Walker and Cian Nugent.
Greta Ruth plays Rozz-Tox on October 17 with an opening set by Liv Carrow, admission to the 8 p.m. show is free, and more information is available by calling (309)200-0978 or visiting RozzTox.com.
