Photo by Ebru Yildiz
Tomberlin
Tomberlin
“They thought I was their queen but I said no, no you must self-govern with kindness and patience,” tweeted Sarah Beth Tomberlin (who records under the name Tomberlin) recently during a break from driving with her band through the endless prairies of Wyoming.
The “they” in question, as the accompanying video shows, is a procession of squirrel-sized prairie dogs, who each take their turn approaching her, standing up on their hind legs, and waiting to be hand-fed a baby carrot. “I have never been happier in my life than I was just now,” added the 28-year-old singer-songwriter, whose bright eyes and joyful smile made that unmistakably clear.
Tomberlin’s outlook is a bit less cheerful on her sophomore album I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This ...,” which was released on Conor Oberst’s Saddle Creek Records label.
“Won’t you cover my eyes? / I don’t know who to be / I don’t know what to see,” she sings on the haunting “Possessed,” while “Happy Accident” offers up wry lines like “I wanna burn it all down / Could I borrow a light?”
The latter is accompanied by a black-and-white video in which Tomberlin emerges from a dark forest—dressed in black-hooded cape and chain-mail sweater, brandishing a sword, tarot cards and a handful of mushrooms—rides an ominously empty subway car, stares wide-eyed at skyscrapers, and ends up in a room with a backwards-walking dog. Think Joan of Arc and Lord of the Rings, with a little Twin Peaks thrown in for good measure.
Sublimely Melodic
The album’s sublimely melodic arrangements, meanwhile, bring to mind artists like Low, Elliott Smith and Nick Drake in their moodier moments. When you combine that with a voice that’s rightfully earned comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Judy Sills, it’s easy to understand why her music has more than 600,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Critics have shown no less enthusiasm, with one British publication going so far as to liken her songs to “talk-therapy sessions,” a comparison of which she’s not particularly fond.
“I feel like a lot of female singer-songwriters get that,” she said. “It’s like ‘Oh, this must be so therapeutic for you to write this confessional cathartic song.’ I’ve talked to a lot of other women, and non-binary people, about this. It’s like they’re dumbing down the work, like it’s not work, it’s just a journal entry that I’ve made into a song. I’m not saying that you’re saying that, but those kinds of words don’t really get thrown around at, you know, Bob Dylan or someone like that. I’m still writing a song and it’s still work. I’m crafting it and it’s purposeful. It’s not like I’ve written a journal entry and I’m like, ‘Hmm, pretty good one today, I’m gonna do a song.’”
When played alongside her primarily acoustic debut album, At Weddings, and its follow-up EP Projections, Tomberlin’s I Don’t Know Who Needs to Hear This… has a fuller band sound, complete with synthesizer, pedal steel, woodwinds, percussion and guitar riffs straight out of the Neil Young playbook.
“Neil Young’s ‘Powderfinger’ is one of my favorite songs ever,” said Tomberlin, who’s covered it—along with songs by Joanna Newsom, Alex G and Porches—on past solo tours. “I definitely want to bring covers into the current set, but this is my first time touring with a band, and so it’s really just like locking in on the songs that are mine. So we’re going to tour this record for a good while, and then it’ll be fun to switch it up.”
Faithful Cover
In the meantime, fans can go online to check out a faithful cover of Low’s “Words,” which she recorded for SiriusXM with her Brooklyn neighbors DIIV.
Which raises another subject that’s been known to show up in previous interviews: While Low’s Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk are both devout Mormons, Tomberlin is a Baptist preacher’s daughter who stepped away from religion while still in her teens, which isn’t always an easy thing to do.
“Church was my entire community growing up,” recalled the musician, who was raised in Fairfield, an Illinois town with less than 5,000 residents. “So moving away from it, I had to find other things to connect to. People and music have always done that for me, they’ve always connected me to myself. And so, you know, it was a blessing to make music, putting it online, and the right people finding it. And that’s why I live in Brooklyn now. It’s not because I wanted to live in New York—actually, I never wanted to live in New York—but I live there because the community is so rich and meaningful and purposeful. People really look out for each other and are engaging with things that are new to them. And that’s exciting to me.
“So yeah, of course, leaving the church created a bit of a hole in my life, but it’s been filled,” Tomberlin said. “It’s kind of a wild journey to sort that out for yourself, and I’m thankful for all of it. You know, it’s made me who I am. And I’m fairly OK with who I am.”
Tomberlin performs at the Marcus Performing Arts Center, Sept. 29.
