» Mary Gauthier

In the case of Mary Gauthier, four words are worth a thousand pictures.
Between Daylight and Dark, her new Lost Highway album, finds her aiming her compass at the sky and searching for home. It is from this longing for home that this group of songs has emerged, and they fill Gauthier’s new album with both hope and anguish, with faith as well as fear.

Mary Gauthier knows these places well, having traveled through a night that had stretched into years, from a turbulent Louisiana childhood through odd juxtapositions of accomplishment and devastation. The result is reflected in the music, starting as a trickle of songs almost from the moment of her sobriety and swelling into the stream that fed her first two self-released albums (Dixie Kitchen, Drag Queens in Limousines), an indie-label release (Filth and Fire), and her stunning Lost Highway debut (Mercy Now).

Gauthier’s evolution as a songwriter continues on Between Daylight and Dark, though the scenery has changed. You have to look closely to see the difference, but it’s there, like a flower pushing through rubble: an intimation of hope, a trace of sunrise in the troubled sky. It’s in the understanding that even as a lover departs on “Before You Leave”, Gauthier sings, “the light that used to shine behind your eyes gets brighter as you walk away”. In the weary wisdom bestowed by love on “Same Road,” Gauthier knows that “when you flirt with the shadows, darkness snakes under your skin” – yet even here, there’s hope: “The only way back home is to let the light of truth come in.”

Gauthier has always been a unique lyricist, with an ability to illuminate even moments of devastation and despair in beautiful hues. That gift is evident throughout Between Daylight and Dark, though her perspective has shifted somewhat. “As a writer, I’m figuring out what my job is today, in this instant,” she explains, “What I did yesterday does not matter. I am more in the moment. I know instinctively when I’m onto something, and then I have to chase that feeling down until I find what it is I need to say in the song. My songwriting changes as I change, and though it’s odd to admit it, I discover a lot about who I am in my songwriting. I can see how I’ve changed by looking back at how my songs have changed. The songs on this record are a little more fragile, a little more tender, and a lot more hopeful.”

Her performances on Between Daylight and Dark reflect her growth not just as a songwriter, but as an artist. Unlike Mercy Now, which was assembled layer upon layer, with each part recorded in sequence, Between Daylight and Dark was cut live, with only an occasional solo or vocal snippet added afterward. Just as important, she gathered her musicians from a pool of players who know how to go deep into a song, being familiar with the creative process from the inside.

Filth & Fire
May 17, 2005

1. Walk Through the Fire 
2. Long Way to Fall 
3. Sugar Cane 
4. Merry Go Round 
5. Good-Bye 
6. Camelot Motel 
7. After You're Gone 
8. Ledge 
9. Christmas in Paradise 
10. For Rose 
11. Sun Fades the Color of Everything 

Resentie / Persbericht

Mary Gauthier's third album 'Filth & Fire' appeared on many of the top CD of the Year lists throughout the country, with Jon Pareles in The New York Times ranking the album as the #1 Independent Album of the Year. "Unflinching honesty makes Filth & Fire a triumph, the best singer-songwriter album of the year..." reported NO DEPRESSION, shortly after the album's release in July 2002. "Filth & Fire should establish her as one of the finest artists in the whole alt country field," reported the Washington Post.

"She is the People's Heart of Alternative Country," said media in Ireland after a recent European tour, and it is a sentiment that is shared by audiences everywhere Mary tours-in the U.S., in Europe, and most recently this summer, on festival stages throughout Canada.