Kimya Dawson - Remember That I Love You

I am ashamed to say that I knew nothing of Kimya Dawson or her former band The Moldy Peaches until I saw the film Juno. With a soundtrack featuring half a dozen of her songs and a very strong music/film connection I am sure I'm not the only one who raced home to google her and try to buy some of her records. To take advantage of slow people like me, K Records are re-releasing several of Dawson's solo albums in the UK and this, her most recent and the most 'Junofied', is the first.

Listening to 'Remember That I Love You' is a very intimate experience. The songs are personal, recorded onto four track with friends helping out and heavy on the words and voice and light on the music; strumming is pretty much all you get, with a bit of whistling and the occasional flute. The album is largely focussed on the theme of how you should love yourself no matter what your shape or size. It is undeniably pretty but there is a fine line between pretty and twee...and even cloying, and this record treads that line fearlessly and with varying amounts of success.

Opener 'Tire Swing', the most prominent song in Juno, is marvellous. Beautifully written and sung, it will put a smile on your face and have you singing along. It also has a lot of assonance (I think thats the word) which makes it sound really pretty. 'My Mom' on the other hand, is for me anyway, far too personal and detailed to enjoy as a song. I am reluctant to criticise it too much due to the subject matter but it is no fun to listen to.

'Loose Lips', also from Juno' is better again and has some great lines about George Bush and some nice lyrics offering listeners the chance to send Kimya an IM if they are feeling suicidal. Things go downhill a bit from here and you realise that the Juno soundtrack curator knew what she was doing in picking the songs she did. 'Caving In' has a distractingly unpleasant violin line and 'I Like Giants' would have been rejected by Belle and Sebastian due to excess tweeness.

The song I really have a problem with though is 'The Competition', a song about how Kimya took being sad and depressed and turned it round into an achievement because of how many people "relate" and email her to say "Thanks for saying the things I didn't know how to say" and how she is happy to make a living by "being Kimya Dawson". If this was tongue in cheek it would be OK, but I believe it is sincere. Honestly, I don't know why anyone would want to listen to this song.

There are other nice moments though. 'France' is nice and funny and has some clever rhyming and '12/26', a song about the USA's reaction to the Tsunami raises some good points.

I wanted to like this album and I really thought I would. I still love 'Tire Swing', its one of my songs of the year. I think there might be a USA/UK difficulty here. There are people I know in the USA/Canada who will love this record and wouldn't even consider the things I have problems with. I don't know why that is, but I cannot suspend my cynicism as much as I would need to, to enjoy this record.

Nice, pretty, sincere - but too much of all three for me I'm afraid.

5.9