Hailing from Wailuku in Hawaii, and now based in Oregon City, songwriter Isabeau Waia’u Walker utilises what they call “the entire instrument”—that is “the air, the soul, the mind, the word.” The guitar and vocals are merely a conduit, channeling older, more abstract forces. Stories, histories, environments, all are as much a part of the Isabeau Waia’u Walker sound as any instrument.
This month saw the release of Better Metric, a brand new EP. After retiring from a teaching career in high schools, Isabeau Waia’u Walker rerouted her energy towards music. After touring with Y La Bamba, she headed into the studio with sound engineer Ryan Oxford and set to work on the new songs. With help from Nick deWitt (percussion, organ), Andrew Jones (bass, stand up bass) and Oxford himself (guitar, percussion), Better Metric was formed, representing the clearest example of the ‘entire instrument’ philosophy.
Opener ‘Woman’ makes this clear. Four simple lines comprise the track’s lyrics, the repetition adding gravity to each word, the sentences stressed as searching questions and statements of intent, eventually drifting down to a barely a murmur but setting the album’s key themes at the forefront from the beginning. The words are inherently personal but somehow wider too, a timeless quality emerging that speaks of a deeper human experience.
Woman
How many years to become this woman?
Roots growing deep in soil growing a woman.
Late bloomer, all around.
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This use of the personal to speak to larger themes is a key facet of the Isabeau Waia’u Walker sound. The delicate warmth of ‘Hymn by Her’ carries a sense of history, as though within the most intimate feelings lies a commonality too. But despite the sound it’s a melancholic track, desperate even, the narrator’s anger burning out into the grey ashes of sadness. This contradiction is the heart of the release, every moment of shared humanity or affirming wisdom countered with sorrow and confusion.
‘Great Endeavour’ comes with broken resolutions, yet the promise of growing older and becoming better. ‘Pull the Story’ is centred on both a lack of direction and looming change, the refrain “It is different now” delivered with a steely edge that might be hard-won confidence or sardonic fatalism. The title track, richly upbeat in sound, speaks of swallowed words and masked intentions. “Keep it,” Walker sings. “Bury it down further / Yeah, Keep it to yourself.” Closer ‘Ordinary Days’ is the most openly morbid, considering not only the worst but its habit to arrive without warning or fanfare.
Cause sad things happen
Sad things happen
A bad thing happened
On an ordinary day
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None of these songs suggests a romantic edge to sadness, nor any easy way out. But they tap into something. Call it the air, the soul, the mind, the word. Call it shared humanity. Because the lesson of Better Metric, with its anger and sadness and unanswered calls into the dark, is that there is no solace to suffering. No noble end to loneliness, no value in pain. The sense of community of these songs, their inherent compassion, comes not from the act of suffering but the communication of the sufferer, the ability and bravery to reach out to others, across distance and time. It’s something to do with telling stories. Something to do with making art.
Better Metric is out now and you can get it form the Isabeau Waia’u Walker Bandcamp page.