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A girl stands on the stage, holding an oversized folk guitar in her arms and smiling from what seems to be pure happiness. She has a raw, earthy appearance; her feet are bare and a collection of turquoise and cowrie-shell necklaces encircles her neck.
Her smile fades to seriousness as she begins to sing; the voice that envelops the crowd is rich and tribal-like, enhanced by a colorful backdrop of accoustic guitars, violas, djembe drums and hand drums. The tone of her music ranges from wild and chanting to soft and melodic, but all is the creation of Seattle's new, rising folk performer, Joules Graves.
Graves began her career at Gasworks Park, in Seattle, where she lived for six months to protest the Gulf War of 1990. Before that, she had moved from her native home in Chicago to a tiny cabin in the San Juan Islands, denying herself all of the commodities that we find necessary, such as electricity and running water. Her hope was to find herself and to pursue her musical passions.
Since then, she has done numerous performances throughout the Pacific Northwest, including an appearance at Bumbershoot 1997. Her tour has recently expanded as far as Los Angeles. She has released three albums-Wildcrafted, Waterfall Child, and her current CD, Plunge!
Graves is a true artist who takes pride in her work. She sings about issues which are important to her, instead of following the same angst-ridden, generic trend as most new groups. Plunge! maintains Graves' integrity as a musician.
The content of her songs consists of an array of themes dealing with everything from nonconformity to self-acceptance to the appreciation of nature. They reflect her optimistic character and ideals of finding peace, beauty, and understanding within herself and the world around her. As the lyrics of her new song, \"Out on a Limb\" state, \"Drink deep from the beauty of this world /Transform the suffering, turn it into a pearl/I'm going out on a limb/Coming alive to take the dive/I'm gonna plunge right in...\"
Graves ridicules the apathy and closed-mindedness plauging our society in her song \"Outta Control\":\"It's a mechanized bureaucracy/Of enforced mediocrity/Homogenized, de-sensitized, culturally dead...\"
Of her belief that no one should be pulled down to the level of conformity, she sings \"Your soul is stained with martini and quiche/Your necktie looks a lot like leash/Being led around by the noose at your collar/war-shipping the almighty dollar,\" in her song \"Corporate Clones\".
Although she criticizes humanity's lack of regards to nature and the Earth, in the song \"Land of Fake Fires\", Graves realizes that in the chaos of destruction, beauty can be seen, even if only in a pale illusion of actuality. \"We do what we can to keep sane/While dodging droplets of acid rain/I think it's ironic that beauty can be found/In pollution making rainbows on the ground,\" she sings.
As a whole, Plunge! is an intriguing and enjoyable album which combimes bold, thoughtful lyrics with unique, wide-ranging vocals and a blending assortment of instruments, all mixed with Graves' deep, yet free-spirited character and philosophies.
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