BWW Reviews: Meredith Wilder COMING OF THE NIGHT CD Release Charms the Crowd at St. Johns Cathedral

Meredith Wilder has stayed in touch with old friends. "The first time Mer and I played music together," said Kevin Herig, the opening act, "Was in math class, sophomore year of High School." Now she's singing on his latest album.

But Meredith has also made new friends. She's been hustling since before she recorded her first CD eight years ago, on a handheld recorder. Now a vital performer, supporter, and teacher in the local music scene, her CD release concert last Friday in the sanctuary of St. John's Cathedral drew quite a crowd: Her peers (members of her band Wildewood), family (her twin sister, a writer who contributes song ideas), fellow choir members (from Polyphony and St. John's cathedral), mentors (members of local band Cactus Tractor), and mentees (members of her Rock 101 youth band). All this adds up to a uniquely communal concert--where a performer's relationship with her audience is so intrinsic, the boundaries between the two are often blurred (such as when Meredith did indeed ask audience members up to play with her, when she sang songs about "Ten years ago" in the time many present first met her, or when the guy who would review her concert was the same guy on whose handheld recorder she made her first album).

This community is Albuquerque. Meredith is Albuquerque's artist, Albuquerque is Meredith's venue-a natural symbiosis in an ecosystem of economic as much as natural aridity, with bands banding together like clumps of sagebrush, intertwining roots for the strength to drive through the rocky soil and plunge for the deep and fabled aquifer. Yet this metaphor isn't exactly right. When I survey the open-spaces just outside the city, I realize: Sagebrush doesn't exactly clump together, but spreads; and there's definitely not an aquifer down there (at least not so deep as the fables claimed). So how does this realization--that my metaphor is slightly off--come to bear on last Friday's concert?

Meredith has one of the most beautiful voices this side of the Rio Grande (whichever side she happens to be on)-like caramel, soothing and dynamic. Her musicianship, too, is impeccable-crafted, precise, and elegant folk-americana that wholly embraces her lyrics with the intimate love and care of a mother's lullaby. This excellence, symbiotically supported by the audience, ensured Friday's concert was a success, a joy.

Now, could Meredith expand her audience--reach the world outside the concert, the people not in the audience? Despite the crowd, there were plenty open pews in that sanctuary, open for a whole world of people who don't yet know Meredith from Margaret. Could she branch from the city, her community, into a broader fan base? The answer's certainly yes, anyone should appreciate Meredith--she's very good. Yet the fact remains: Only few have been actually drawn in-this could be circumstantial (the poverty of the city and the saturation of the music market). But also, Meredith can develop her excellence--and appeal--by expanding her stylistic range.

This is a world where Joanna Newsom sings four octaves in a single verse, Juliana Barwick creates vast landscapes just with her voice, Bjork astounds all musical conventions with every new release along her 20-year career, and even the shallower pop stars like Taylor Swift and Adele reinvent themselves every year. Today, music and performance, are so diverse--an artist can explore every nook and cranny of innovation's soil, to enhance the fragrance they cast across their field.

I had to look up online what sagebrush roots actually look like, because in the city grid, I can lose perspective on the true landscape: their roots do intertwine, sometimes; the first metaphor wasn't so wrong. But each root is also uniquely itself, each a beautiful geometric puzzle of flowing, splintered tendrils. Sagebrush derives beauty from hardiness: It must primarily establish itself alone--because a desert ecosystem can only support so much.
Meredith's lyrics are sage, in the sense of wisdom: Her content has matured since high school's basic boy-trouble ballads; now she writes stories with dynamic poetry, exploring war, survival, identity...her words burned like smudge, filling the air with relevant and personal truth: "Maybe my work will pay off and my dreams match up with my talk."
Too often, her words faded into the narrow mellowness of her tunes. The lyrics were the only part of the music that'd she'd developed without members of the audience (she's joined an online writer's group). This made me wonder if her symbiotic community audience could up-the-game a bit--and if Meredith could lead the way. Which is why I wrote this review: to support her--to grow, expand, so all of us grow.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Walkowiak

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