SEE-BURY, SHE says, though sigh-berry might be a more apt pronunciation. If ever you felt like you neded music to wallow inn, to nose your way down into the kind of depths of the subconscious that Ken Russell s Altered States conjured up, then Ms. Siberry s the woman for you. And not a lot of folks know that (especially round these here parts).
Anyways, the name s only a borrowed one, since she stole it from her aunt and uncle because this woman and her husband were the first couple I met where I could feel the love between them and I held that in front of me as a reference point . And it s far more memorable than the one on her birth certificate: somehow Jane Stewart doesn t quite prick up the ears in the way Siberry does.
She played a blinder of a gig in Whelan s last March and ever since then we ve been crossing fingers, toes and any other digits we could find in the hope of a return visit. And how welcome it was in late November, when the only other light on the horizon was tacky 10 watt fairy bulb with a penchant for short circuiting.
Child is Siberry s ninth release, the second on her own independent label, Sheeba. It s a double CD of Christmas music, most of it gathered from the proverbial four corners, but with a handful of original material interspersed, lest we lose sight of that quirky Siberry take on things. For some of us though, Siberr-ites and all as we are, Child poses more than a minor challenge, since its entire raison d jtre concerns a season which we d rather do without.
Siberry admits to the potential alienation factor of releasing a seasonal album.
I ve wanted to do a Christmas album for quite a while, she explains, and working in accordance with the physical laws, nature pours a vacuum, and I felt there was a certain gathering of songs missing at least for me anyway. But I guess I wanted to create an album that would be for people who don t like Christmas too much either. I mean, we didn t want to use the word saviour too much so there were a lot of songs that just couldn t make it for that reason.
To me, the appreciation of Christmas has to come from needing it. People are so assaulted by the saccharine quality of so much commercial music, and it s offensive because music is sacred and the symbolism of Christmas is sacred even if you don t believe in the event.
Even a cursory listen to the Siberry back-catalogue reveals a recurrent motif that alludes to a symbiotic relationship between whiteness and truth. Such images are not only recurrent, but somehow evocative of the wide open spaces that, as a Canadian native, she must have experienced. Is she conscious of these motifs?
Kind of, Siberry responds, slowly. Whenever I see pictures of snow my whole being goes on alert. And it s not so much because of long, cold, Canadian winters, but it s more an understanding of lightness and vastness, and probably solitude. I think that s what it suggests to me anyway.
I wonder, finally, how she sees herself in the great big battle for the audiences that goes on out there. Is there a box for Jane Siberry as surely as there s one for Oasis, and for Mike Flowers?
I see myself as fairly private, but breaking out occasionally into Top 40 status, she declares, evidently having given this matter some thought. When I see people like Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt, who do their own thing and then they do a re-mix that pulls them into the mainstream, that s the kind of thing that I feel is right for me too. But right now, I m just so focused on trying to get out what I m hearing in my head, that I m quite happy just doing that I guess! n
Child is out now on Pinnacle Records.