Zoe Boekbinder – Wildflower: Album Review

By John Barlass on 22nd May 2024 • ( Leave a comment )

Straight to the point and often deeply personal – Zoe Boekbinder holds nothing back on her new album, Wildflower.

Release Date: 26^th April 2024

Label: Are and Be Recordings

Formats: CD / Digital

We’ve had prior warning of this one. Back in February – it seems such a long time ago – we were charmed and challenged by Hold My Hand, the lead single from Wildflower, the imminent new album from Upstate New York-based, indie-folk, singer-songwriter Zoe Bookbinder and now, here’s the parent album.

Wildflower is a fascinating album; on the surface, it’s a collection of endearing, melodic, well-produced songs, brimming with joy, charmingly delivered and packed with great musicianship. But, lurking just beneath that surface, are lyrical messages that are amongst the most cutting, direct and, occasionally, deeply personal that you’ll hear this side of Christmas. Wildflower is an album that challenges and forces you to think.

But first, a short recap. As with many non-binary people, Zoe Boekbinder likes to be referred to in the plural. Nomadic at heart and a creator at their core, they were born onto a farm into a family of four children. For them, music is as natural and as necessary as breath and the way they engage as an activist. Boekbinder was raised, in part, by their grandfather, a holocaust survivor. Having survived the horrific, prejudiced violence of his past, he instilled in Boekbinder a deep belief in justice. Songwriting has become their resistance.

Although the two scientists who raised them only owned a handful of tapes and CDs, Zoe grew up singing to themself. Boekbinder’s career started in 2005 when they formed a band with their sibling, Max. The two toured and recorded together under the name Vermillion Lies until 2009, when Boekbinder released their first solo album, Artichoke Perfume. That was also the year that Boekbinder started volunteering, teaching music workshops, inside a maximum-security prison.

Boekbinder’s songs reflect the life they are living and the people in it. In 2020, along with the Prison Music Project collective and Ani DiFranco, they released a record consisting of songs by writers they worked with inside the prison. That album is called Long Time Gone and was released on Righteous Babe Records in June, 2020. In 2021, in reaction to the pandemic and following the damage to their home, caused by Hurricane Ida, Boekbinder moved to the countryside. There, they are surrounded by red-tailed hawks, families of foxes, forests, and the startling silence of Northeastern winter.

Wildflower is Boekbinder’s first since release their 2018 offering, Shadow (I make it their sixth album), and is a product of this new peaceful life and the solitude that comes with it. Some songs were written by the woodstove or while perched on an old rock wall, while others tagged along from years before, finally finding a home in this collection. Inspired by Zoe’s observations of gender inequality in the music industry and funded through a grant from Canada Council for the Arts, Wildflower has been written, recorded and produced entirely by women.

Wildflower gets off to a light, bright, easy-going start with the country-flavoured Cover Up the Moon. The light percussion and resounding bass is, perhaps, the signature sound of the album and, here, it’s supplemented by splashes of deliciously soaring pedal steel. During the course of the 13 songs on Wildflower, Zoe assumes a whole range of vocal guises and, on Cover Up the Moon, there are hints of Roy Orbison to their delivery.

Look below the light driving shuffle of lead single, Hold My Hand and you’ll find an early example of Zoe’s propensity for dressing uncomfortable subject matter in bright, attractive clothing. Zoe’s lyrics recall an emotionally abusive relationship, as they explain: “This person was hot and cold, always pushing me away and pulling me back in. I never knew what to expect and it kept me on my toes in the worst way. I wrote this song shortly before we broke up.” And, if you find yourself enchanted by the song’s driving, shuffling rhythm, Ryan Coleman’s slithery, earthy bass and Zoe’s delightful, passionate vocals, take a moment to listen to what they’re saying: “We are one ocean apart, still you break my heart – relieved you are to separate, between us only space – and still you push me away.”

There’s less of an attempt to sweeten the message on the intimate The Rest of His Days. Zoe accompanies themself on fingerpicked acoustic guitar as they recount their story of hurt, regret and forgiveness, and their lyrics – “Oh my friend, it’s such a shame. When he was young, he hurt someone and he’ll pay for the rest of his days” are powerful and passionate. Zoe’s voice takes on a vulnerable hue for Mycelium, the album’s second single, a chugging rock song with a rhythm that increases in urgency as the song progresses and which is illuminated by flashes of pedal steel, and that vulnerability is retained Scared to Mess It Up, a slice of deep self-analysis that Zoe serves up to a backing of twangy electric guitar and another soft, subtle drumbeat.

Ghostly strands of pedal steel and dobro lend a spot of psychedelic colouring to Garden and the intensity of Zoe’s double-tracked voice reveals the hidden power of the song, before raw passion takes over for the unremittingly sad More Like a Home. It’s one of the album’s real highlights and Zoe holds nothing back as, with lyrics like: “She walks into the room and lays down next to me – I tell her that it’s strange to feel her body” and “You could not see that I lost a part of me; you couldn’t hear me when I told you I lost a person that was more like a home,” they spell out the most intimate details of an ended relationship.

Typical of the album, there’s a deep contrast between the harshness of the opening lines of I Tried to Be Good – “On my first morning, with your hands around my neck, was I some kind of joke, or what I could expect?” – and the song’s gentle, melodic, banjo accompaniment but there are fewer strings attached to the dreamy Supernatural as, for once, Zoe’s confessional, personal, lyrics – “I think you are heavenly, you’re the Supernatural for me” – are echoed by the sentimentality of the tune.

There are moments on Wildflower when Zoe’s voice takes on Roy Orbison inflections (Cover Up the Moon) and moments when it’s reminiscent of Buddy Holly (Hold My Hand). For the singalong No Sunshine, No Hurricane, it’s Joan Baez that comes immediately to mind, and the amazing vocals are further enhanced by some stunning harmonies from Megan McCormick. And, on an album that’s so chock-full of anguish and confession, the pastoral celebration of Where Time is Free comes as a real surprise. With lyrics like: “It is a gift, you see, just a chance to be in a place where time ain’t money; in a place where time is free,” Zoe celebrates the freedom of their newly-discovered rural life – and there’s some great slide guitar to enjoy, too!

The shuffling rhythm and fluid bass that characterize Wildflower are back for You Won’t Let Me Go, a song that oozes with joy, despite the hints of anguish that lurk in the song’s lyrics, before Zoe wraps up this excellent album with Oh Sophia, the song that, perhaps above all others, crystalises the emotions that pervade the album. Zoe’s lyrics – “When the life force left your body, did it enter the atmosphere,” and “Oh Sophia, how I miss you – you put yourself to rest, and I pray your pain is gone,” relate the tragic life of their former best friend who took her own life a few years ago. But Zoe’s recollections take the form of a celebration of Sophia’s life and their lyrics are squeezed into a bright, sweet country tune without any hint of irony.

Wildflower is an intriguing album and Zoe Boekbinder is a remarkable artist. This is an album that you’ll want to play over and over again.

Watch the official video to Mycelium – the second single to be taken from Wildflower – here: