Paula Frazer and Tarnation

Now It's Time

(Birdman)

Record Review by Sarah Jane

Raised in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, and later in adolescence moving to Eureka Springs, Arkansas (a Road To Avonlea-style magical Victorian village watched over by a seven-story statue of Jesus), Paula Frazer played the organ and sang in the choir of her minister father’s church. At 18, the young hymnodist moved to San Francisco and has resided there ever since. Down to the blooms of white kalmia encircling the Now It’s Time CD, it’s easy to understand why Frazer is so besotted with her own narrative.

Tarnation are a revolving series of musicians who play Frazer’s compositions; their first album, Gentle Creatures, is included in Rolling Stone’s top 25 alt-country albums of all time.  Now It’s Time’s “Nowhere” best exemplifies the Gothic revival of Tarnation’s oeuvre.  The album is akin to Emmylou Harris’ 1995 album Wrecking Ball; unlike that album (penned by the likes of Neil Young, Steve Earle and Bob Dylan), Frazer wrote these songs herself, and is also a talented fotdella-like multi-instrumentalist.

There’s a refreshing purity of artistic vision carried through Now It’s Time, from a bluegrass field recording (“August’s Song”) to restrained ‘60s surf ballads (“Another Day” and “I’ll Never Know”), to the Carpenters-esque “Shadows,” the modified yodeling of the childlike “Pretend” (“I’ll pretend to hold your hand and make you smile”) and the simple but beautiful acoustic arrangement underscored by sadness and bad memories on the “Landslide”-paralleling title track.  Now It’s Time closes with “All the Time,” second only to the toy piano-driven “Bitter Rose,” and the most straightforward, Caitlin Cary-styled alt-country track on the album.  The only misstep is “Nowhere” – rather Bon Jovi “Wanted Dead or Alive”.

Paula Frazer recorded most of Now It’s Time on an 8-track in her Edwardian home in Bernal Heights (San Francisco), yet her Appalachian alt-country retains the frailty (“First Sign”) and uncertainty (“Sleeping Dreams”) of a young Dolly Parton still sheltered in the impoverished Smokies of her childhood.