Sarah Bethe Nelson

Bay Area singer-songwriter Sarah Bethe Nelson’s multiple albums of balladry and pop chart an emotional wave of the multifarious and sometimes tumultuous changes of the area’s landscape. Her latest is no exception. Enter Mental Picture, a collection of aftershock spectral tunes ghosting in the aura of the recent age spinning out from the contradictions of Nelson's steely reserve and melancholy fragility. If past efforts highlighted a certain zeal for the times, Mental Picture, while no less resolute in its approbation of the charms of this particular wasteland, definitely adds the haunt of eyes that have seen a grimness and dared to wink back at it. Think later Townes Van Zandt self-deprecation jolted through the afterglow of Stoned And Dethroned horizon-watching.
Mental Picture is an incredibly homegrown, early Smog-like affair. “It was a natural thing that grew slowly out of a pretty dark and unpredictable time,” she describes. “Music was something positive we could build together so, naturally, that’s what we did.” The feeling of homecoming here parallels the intimacy of Mental Picture and echoes the burnished survival instincts of the locals still standing and weaving tales together. But don't get this wrong, there's also a universality here that’s unchained by any particularities to a certain time and place. Everyone is in the Zone, after all.