You just got home from a long day of classes and start to undo the many layers of clothing that you piled on this morning to brave the weather. Desperately seeking warmth, you walk to the kettle that waits on your stove and fill it with water. It should be done in about five minutes. This will give you time to go into the bathroom and start to make your evening bath. Light those candles that you got from your grandmother over the holidays and turn down the lights. You start to think about how much time it must have taken her to individually wrap those candles when – what the hell is that noise? Oh yeah, the tea is ready. As you fill your mug up, you think about what the perfect music would be to listen to while you take a calming bath to ease your winter pain.
The answer comes easily: Meaghan Smith’s “The Cricket’s Quartet.” This four-song basket of perfection brings only one word to the forefront of your mind: whimsical. Meaghan Smith’s jazzy folk music is pure enough to make you forget about waiting for the bus this morning while the winds made a four degree temperature feel like negative 11 degrees. Her sweet, simple melody makes the horrid memory of walking in the middle of the ice-covered street, because no one shovels the sidewalks around campus, fade away.
In her first track, “I Know,” Smith comes out like the girl who you never have to answer the dreaded question – “what are you thinking about?” She would never ask such a thing from you because she already knows. “A Little Love” takes you from your warm bath to your small cottage near the lake. You can now look out the windows and imagine Smith’s classic feel along with a contemporary scratch from her turntable. It’s been years since you came to this cottage. You look away from the window and towards the worn-down couch that sits in front of an already lit fireplace. “Drifted Apart” makes you reach under the couch and pull out a photo album that you forgot you left there years ago. Smith’s effortlessly beautiful voice helps you understand the fact that as you grew older, the people who were “forever” in your life have strayed onto different paths. Then the swinging horns in “If You Ask me” wake you up to a realization that the silly emotion of love will come again, as long as you are open to it.
To make this fantasy come true you must take a hit of acid and buy Meaghan Smith’s EP, but not necessarily in that order. If you want to wait for the full album to come out later in the year then I’m sure Norah Jones would still work…for now.