RUN MYSELF INTO THE GROUND

sounding very much like a bored waitress at the local woolworth's lunch counter on palafox in pensacola, ms mayfield delivers a dark & deep album filled w/shame & anger & the occasional glimpse of some kind of solace, which is about all the redemption she's willing to offer. i hear flannery o'connor here; the pre-lupus flannery who went to new york pursuing the idealized literary life, breaking hearts & having hers broken by boys of callow youth. flannery's early work had pain & shame & anger in it too. it was only when the disease drove her back to the "christ haunted" south that she was able to see a way out of quotidian suffering. of course, her way out wasn't easy & ms mayfield seems to pretty much agree.

i think of bob mould's line, "i always find the broken ones, what does that say about me." this album rises out of the debris of a damaged life & insists on finding beauty & redemption whereever it can.

tell me jessica lea mayfield