Emily Asen Bares Her Bones on To the Marrow

If you’ve ever wondered where the forefront of Connecticut’s indie-folk-pop scene was, and if you’re a college student there’s actually a pretty good chance you have, then wonder no more. It’s in Fairfield, Connecticut, and it’s currently being championed by none other than Connecticut native Emily Asen.

Asen is a singer-songwriter with an impressive resume and, apparently, more instrumental versatility than you can shake a glockenspiel at. On her second studio album, To the Marrow, she lays down the tracks for the acoustic guitar, vocals and pretty much everything else. This includes electric guitar, cello, bass, wurlitzer, synthesizer, lap steel, the aforementioned glockenspiel and more. In fact, the only instruments she doesn’t contribute to this album are the drums and percussion, which are provided by Dennis Arcano from Bethel, Connecticut. She even mixed and recorded the record as well. She’s practically a one-woman band (she literally sings alongside herself in the track “Under My Tongue”).

As if this wasn’t impressive enough, she also started her own independent record label, Violent Maiden Records, out of her own home. She released her first full length album, Proof LP, in 2008, and prior to that released a few EPs. These accomplishments have not made her conceited, however. Rather, while listening to To the Marrow, I got the exact opposite vibe. The lyrics have a personal, introspective quality that belies the sometimes grand, sweeping sound of the music behind it. This sweep is inevitable with the sheer number of tracks playing on each song. The layers here are thick and it’s almost fun just listening to the album a few times to notice which instruments you can hear playing in the background.

Each track tends to start out sparse before becoming more detailed as layers of music are added, and by the end, the sparseness often returns. The opening track, “Baltimore,” begins lightly enough. The strings of a cello can be heard throughout the song (and most of the album). The song describes a lover that has left for Baltimore.

The title of the album comes from one of the more poignant lyrics, “From my skin to my bones/I am cold as hell/But the sight of you still warms me/To the marrow, to the marrow.” It’s a sweet, folk-y song, tinged with the sadness of separation. Asen’s voice is clean and piercing and it leads every song, heading the cornucopia of instruments that play behind it.

This sadness is then all but thrown aside in the next track, “The Fool,” which takes a darker turn. The electric guitar arrives here, buzzing in the background during the verses, and becoming more prominent during the choruses, which have Asen repeating, “I figured you out/I’m bringing you down.” The folk elements are all but lost in a much denser sound. The cello strings are eventually introduced in the song around the three-minute mark. It sounds more like a pop-rock radio hit than anything else on the album.

The folk returns full force in “In the Marrow,” a playful, cheery song that is the closest thing the album comes to having a title track, but “I’m Sorry” once again reverses this train of thought with a melancholy melody that suits the guilt-ridden lyrics. Although “I’m Sorry” is hardly an inspired line, she delivers the chorus with such sincerity that you get the feeling she really means it, especially in the lyric, “Now I’m the reason you don’t talk/I’d break my bones to know your mind.” The second half of the song kicks up, putting an electric guitar over the acoustic one plucking in the background. The sound doesn’t get too big here, and there are some interesting things done with the keyboard that are, sadly, far too faint in the background to really appreciate.

The entire album has a very nature-bound theme wrapped around it (in particular, “Evergreen” and “Seasons Song”), from the lyrics to the album cover, which depicts the artist in the autumn weather.

The song “Under My Tongue” strays from this path briefly, and deals with the topic of marriage equality; namely, Asen’s own desire for marriage equality. She even pledged to donate a portion of the proceeds from the album during the month of October to the Human Rights Campaign, an organization dedicated to achieving equal rights for the LGBTQ community.

Considering that Asen practically works alone, this is a very impressive album. Nothing about it comes off as cheap. Every song has a polished feel. There are no lazy moments; no tracks go neglected or unloved. The only real oddity to me is the cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy.” It seemed, to me, somewhat of an afterthought, more suited to an EP. This isn’t to say that the track is bad, or poorly performed or arranged. On the contrary, it’s as well done as the rest of the album. She certainly deserves to be commended for the sheer daring of it; “Crazy” is by no means an easy song to cover, and in her defense, it’s certainly the best cover of a contemporary R&B song by an indie-folk-pop artist that I’ve ever heard – or at least the most interesting.

Even if this isn’t your kind of music, I think there is a little something everyone can appreciate in this album, if not in Asen herself. This is not shallow music. That is not to say, though, that Asen is trying to change the world – I don’t necessarily think she is – but she is certainly pushing the limits of what she is musically capable of.  There is something terribly endearing about Asen and her music. Her voice is sincere, honest and quite charming.

If this is your kind of music, then I would strongly suggest checking Emily Asen out (notable tracks include “The Fool,” “I’m Sorry” and “Overdue”).

I rate this album three out of four camels.