Pride month is slipping into the rearview mirror as Summer presses ever forward, but if you still need a tune or two to fill out a multi-hued playlist to celebrate, consider picking something up from Renee Goust and her latest album, Resister. I know next to nothing about Renee other than what is on her Bandcamp page and I only know about her because I saw that WBEW Vocalo in Chicago played one of her songs. However, I'm compelled to write about her work because I find what she's doing interesting and pretty unique as well.
Renee combines American and Mexican folk traditions to scatch wonderfully deep and lovingly embellished portraits of everyday people living their lives. Some men. Some women. Some gay. Some Mexican. Others are from parts unknown. And still, others may claim neither nationality nor gender as determinative of their identities. They're all part of the tapestry of humanity that blankets the Earth, a theme that is given life from the outset on bright and crisp opener "Diosa," where Renee pays homage to a universal being while delivering a sweet thrumming vocal melody atop a clip and shutter of Spanish guitars.
Beyond the theme of communion with the whole of the human family, Resistor also satisfies the slightly more narrow study of romantic love. Sometimes this love is between a man and a woman, like in the warm and wistful ballad, "A kiss in the mall." But as the video for that song makes clear, the normative binary of opposite sexes attracting is not generally Renee's focus. Love is where you find it, and Renne is enthusiastic in her ability to paint with the full pallet of possible human affinity and passion. And the passion she shares with other women is probably nowhere better exemplified than on the bendy steal backed, countryfied canzone, "Baltimore to Brooklyn," a charming song about a woman who will travel just about any distance to be with the one she loves.
In writing songs within this latter category, Renee pretty clearly draws from the understated, but perennial, heritage of lesbian folk music within the United States, and baths it in the textures and sounds of ranchera, as well as other Mexican folk traditions, until they are fully absorbed within it like milk and sugar soaking into the dough of pan dulce. It's an overlap of influences that is well overdue. Genre is historically permeable and it thrives on cross-pollination. Just like the Southern border between US and Mexico. No one whose interests intersects with those of common people's benefits whatsoever from lines being drawn where they do not need to be drawn. There are lots of things that you should be putting your whole back into resisting these days, but if there is one thing you should let slip past your guard, it's Renee Renee Goust's Resister.
