Dinah’s new single “Ferns” (from her forthcoming album Dinah! due out February 23) begins with a minimalist clarity, spare guitar work and the songwriter’s alto voice bringing to the song an air of mystery. As the song progresses we hear some simple electronic percussion and synth but all more rhythmic and textural in effect lending the song a fragile vulnerability that conveys an emotional authenticity even as the lyrics are somewhat enigmatic in their explicit meaning. Dinah employs the imagery of nature and how many of us find an emotional resonance in the natural world that we don’t often find directly in human society and the ways our true intentions can be masked or compromised by agendas that may not even be our own. The line “Gentle white pine, teach me to stand strong” is so simple and in the context of the music video it makes a powerful poetic sense the way find strength in their spiritual beliefs or in their memories or other sense of energies bigger than standard, everyday human existence. It’s like leaning back into one’s imagination for the kind of fortitude that can’t be taken away and can have a consistency where other sources of strength can falter. Fans of the more minimal, folk end of Xiu Xiu will appreciate how Dinah cuts the songwriting and the words used to their essential emotional core on this song and the other singles now available to hear from the album. Watch the video for “Ferns” on YouTube and follow Dinah at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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