Of The Sun
Still Rising
Self Released
22 September 2022
That Marian van der Zon’s debut album as Of the Sun is actually being released is little short of miraculous. As I detailed in my review of her ultra-lowkey comeback performance back in 2018, the Cedar, British Columbia-based alt. folk singer-songwriter’s life was turned upside-down by a terrible vehicular accident in 2013. Causing a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other serious issues, it ended her career as a university professor, putting paid to any kind of work-life at all, requiring spinal surgery and years of cognitive therapy. Suffering from debilitating migraines and a permanent state of exhaustion, van der Zon could not even listen to music with a beat without pain, and she still struggles in this regard.
Due to the severity of her TBI, there were fears that she might never be able to perform as a musician again, let alone function normally. Indeed, touring in the true sense of the word is an impossibility for van der Zon, as playing just a single show is so demanding it needs to be followed by days of rest. And yet, nine extremely challenging years later, this evidently fiercely determined woman has astonished all who know her by unveiling Still Rising.
An album of lyrically poignant folk and alt. country with a couple of forays into Julia Easterlin-esque loop-driven vocal material, its title mirrors the fact that van der Zon’s dogged recovery continues to this day. However, the elation she will surely enjoy as a consequence of finally ushering this affecting collection of songs into the public realm will hopefully assist in aiding her ongoing rehabilitation. Indeed, van der Zon describes Still Rising’s quietly momentous release as “a big stepping out.”
Although her solo bow, this album follows a decade on from Square Pie, the second album (after 2009’s Farewell to Gerald Fitzella) by Puzzleroot, van der Zon’s idiosyncratic folk act with her former partner, and my introduction to her music. While sonic elements from those days remain, the lyrics are understandably markedly different, with her recent personal history permeating the songs in one way or another.
Along with Nature Meditations and Equine Facilitated Wellness programs, the composition and recording of these songs have been an integral component of van der Zon’s gradual healing process. That she has expressed the attendant feelings here is both cathartic for the artist and, for the listener, a window into her world and thoughts since the accident. For example, albeit presented out of context:
I’m gonna crawl my way to sanity (Grace)
Falling into silence, listening to my breath / Letting go, letting go, ten thousand tiny deaths (Wrong Way – Still Rising’s first single)
Some days I go to sleep, some days I just don’t want to know / Some days I get to weep, some days I just stay low, low (Some Days)
Yet while these difficult emotions naturally dwell within the material, such is the pertinacious spirit of this musician that she refuses to wallow in and document self-pity. Instead, van der Zon is now preferring to follow a deeply spiritual, nature-based life path, forging resolutely ahead by focusing on the beauty in her world, particularly in terms of love. Whether it be the self-love intrinsic to her healing, romantic love or universal love, such sentiments liberally abound in Still Rising’s poetic lyrics. (One need only note three of the eleven song titles – Storm of Love, In Love, and We are Love – the latter appearing twice, the second instance as a looped acapella to close the album). Additionally and encouragingly, the album is imbued with optimism for van der Zon’s future, evident from the very first line of the gentle opening cut, Grace:
Now I am better, I’m on the rise / I can fly into the sky
Elsewhere, van der Zon reinforces these feelings of hope when singing such as:
I feel so alive and of intrinsic worth (Wrong Way)
I opened my mouth to sing / Without a care for who might hear / I let the notes take to the wind / Felt and let go, of my fear (Shine – Still Rising’s second single)
After moving through, after moving through / I feel the peaceful me / I am the peaceful me (Peaceful Me)
The inspirations behind some of the songs are fascinating, and undeniably moving. Take She, for example, a number reminiscent of The Handsome Family, which concerns van der Zon’s “tremendous amount of time meditating with trees… So much so, that at times I could ‘feel’ what being a tree is like…energetically…the age, slowness of cycles and growth, hidden power,” she says. Of the moody Storm of Love, the artist states, “…we spend far too much time as a species cultivating negative energy and emotions. This was written as an antidote to hate…as a way to fan the flames of love.” Jeez, how we need songs of such a sentiment right now. Regarding the gorgeous country earworm Some Days, van der Zon sagely remarks that “the lyrics remind us that life is about change, and that all emotional states are temporary.”
The most arresting track by far, at glorious odds with the rustic material in which it is sandwiched, is the 7-minute Dragon Dreams. Built atop a looped chant, the epic 21-verse fantasy was inspired by “a lucid dream in the wake of a flotation/sensory deprivation tank session during my recovery process,” as van der Zon explains it. “As I awoke from the dream I felt compelled to start writing, and four pages of (mostly) rhyming verse came out, almost unedited. The imagery, symbolism and lyrics concern love, hope and compassion for humanity and all living beings. It felt like a gift, a story from universal consciousness.”
The bulk of the recording of Still Rising took place during the ongoing pandemic, principally remotely in collaboration with the Canadian roots legend Steve Dawson’s Henhouse Express. The winner of 7 Juno Awards, the Nashville-based Dawson (not to be confused with the Chicagoan leader of Dolly Varden) put together this initiative as, firstly, a way in which to continue working during the pandemic and, secondly, to present an affordable alternative for independent musicians to get their music out there, as expertly mixed by him, and backed by veritable heavyweights in their fields. With all lead vocals and banjo handled by van der Zon, Dawson contributes his silky guitar playing, while drummer Gary Craig supplies drums from his Toronto home studio, and Jeremy Holmes adds bass guitar from his place in Vancouver. Albethey never in the same room, the four musicians comprise a highly effective roots combo that has brought van der Zon’s home recordings to sparkling life. Augmenting the core personnel are Justin Amaral on percussion and bassist William Moore, both on three cuts, with van der Zon’s local musician friends Darren McKinnon, Tina Jones, Shelley Brown, and James Scholl providing backing vocals.
That I have been able to review this lovely album at all is extremely gratifying, not to mention a great relief. When I witnessed van der Zon’s emotional comeback set four years ago, her health was still delicate, her resolute recovery continuing – as it still does – and her future as a musician in any capacity uncertain, yet here we have Still Rising. While in the blinding light of day, it is ‘simply’ a collection of highly listenable folk songs created in a rural Vancouver Island community; in terms of a triumph of the human spirit, it is an extraordinary achievement.
Still Rising is released digitally on Bandcamp on September 22nd, with a limited edition CD to follow within a few weeks.
WEBSITE: https://www.ofthesun.ca/
BANDCAMP: https://ofthesun2.bandcamp.com/