A quietness about you washes all over you when "What Once Was," the new single from meka, first begins. It is reminiscent of strolling through an old, long-abandoned woodland the day after the rain, every leaf possessing a tale, every shadow holding something sanctified. Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Melissa Lingo wears the mantle of meka, whispering in your ear rather than shouting, announcing that she is a tunesmith unlike any other. And, in "What Once Was," taken from her new album, she lures us into a sad and attractive world.
"What Once Was" is no ordinary folk song. It's more like a staring reflection. It is a murmur. It is a curse woven from myths and the holiest confessions of femininity. It is primarily intended to celebrate the hag whom everyone shuns, the hag that everyone fears. meka, however, sees it differently. In "What Once Was," the hag is not a person of decay, a witch simmering in brutality and squalor. Instead, it's an ancient pillar that seems like it could snap at any time but continues to hold undefined. With sparsely acoustic instrumentation, the song allows every breath and broken phrase to land with an aching clarity. There are no frills here, nothing other than raw, reverent storytelling and an undercurrent of emotional tension that climbs without ever snapping. This tension makes the track intimate, like meka telling you about a life she has taken for hundreds of years.
Her voice, feathery and unassuming at first, reveals its own dimension over time, a spectral kind of beauty that recalls Adrianne Lenker and Alela Diane. There's something timeless about her delivery, a sprinkle of 1960s and '70s wistful yet sturdy folk memories grounded in the lyrical bravery that feels very now. "What Once Was" just got that quiet way and all the centuries' worth of story weight. Available on the Dumont Dumont LP, "The Rabbit," this song is a shout in the dark for the unspoken, unfailing strength of the feminine in all her wild, woefully underestimated forms. Too often too loud, meka reminds us there is still power in the pause, still magic in the forgotten. In this case, "What Once Was" may be what we need again.
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