“I channel the flower power tender resistance of the 60s and 70s.” — Mae Powell, in an interview with White Crate
Four years since her last full-length album, Mae Powell returns with Making Room for the Light, a flower-powered piece of heart-infused folk rock out now on Ohio label Karma Chief Records. If there’s one thing to know about Mae Powell, it’s that her voice is dusky, melodious, and just plain beautiful. It’s singular, yet you can tell she has watered it with a wide variety of influences, including Carole King, Roberta Flack, and Billie Holiday. She’s also one of the bright stars of the Bay Area indie music constellation, a fact made apparent by her bandmates on this album: Garrett Barley of The Breathing Room, Sam Jones of Mild Universe (for whom Mae now sings lead vocals), and Mayya Feygina.
For this writer, the album’s apex is its second track: “Where Will Love Go?” is a humble little funky number that places Mae’s voice front and center as she preaches the power of a love far beyond the strictures of a one-to-one romance. Instead, her lyrics gently proclaim the infinitude of a love wide enough to encompass the entire world—but only once that love has been big and strong enough to encompass one’s self. Practical, spiritual, grounded, and sky-high poetic all at once, the song is four minutes of evidence that sometimes one song can say everything.
Celebrate the album release with Mae Powell tonight at the Independent.
