by David Wilikofsky
I first became familiar with Ruth Garbus via her 2010 album Rendezvous with Rama. Still one of my favorite albums of that decade, it’s a dreamy, gently blurred take on folk music. Garbus has only released one full length since (2019’s Kleinmeister), but her latest, Alive People, might be my favorite yet. Stripping her music down to the bare essentials, Alive People is a celebration of many things: Garbus’s incisive songwriting, her performance chops, and the ineffable power of live music.
In many ways, Alive People is the most stripped down Garbus has sounded on record. Though collaborators pop in and out, occasionally providing background vocals or additional instrumentation, the clear focal point is Garbus’s words and voice. Standout “Rubber Tree” is an ode to a houseplant, one where Garbus’s vocal gymnastics bring to mind legends like Joni Mitchell. The more sedate lead single, “Mono No Aware”, is a rambling meditation on the beauty and cruelty of life, one that flits from Garbus’s artistic process to wondering about how the squirrels outside the window survive the winter. Elsewhere she sketches out the grim realities of homelessness in Vermont (“Whisper In Steel”) or how the fear of failure can hold you back (“Sports”). The songs are unified by a keen sense of introspection; they unfold like an internal monologue, gently winding their way through Garbus’s thoughts and observations.
Alive People was recorded in front of an audience, but it’s not immediately obvious. It doesn’t sound like a traditional live album because there aren’t any of the sonic markers of the crowd: no clapping, no cheers, not even a cough or a rustle. There’s also no stage banter, at least in the traditional sense; small improvisatory snippets from Garbus and her collaborators serve as brief pauses between songs, but we don’t hear anything resembling a back and forth between performer and audience. Yet once you know this is a live album, it makes complete sense. There’s still an ineffable quality to these recordings that can only come from performance; you sense the electricity in the room, the audience enraptured by each swoop of Garbus’s voice and each turn of phrase. Alive People is a testament to the power of Garbus as a songwriter and performer, but it’s more than that: it’s the rare live recording that manages to capture the medium’s unique power.