Discorder Review November 2008

superioryouareinferior

(Independent)

Many CDs cross the desk of a reviews editor over the course of a month, and it is a rare day when one is so well loved that it has been played several dozen times in the lead up to review, but such is the case with superioryouareinferior. This is the fourth offering from Rae Spoon, a deeply personal album written about the emotional and physical reality of living as a female-to-male transgender person in Canada. With its collage cover art containing a deer wearing electric blue eye shadow and false eyelashes, the juxtaposition of nature and culture and the thematic premise of forcing something to be what it isn’t is evident before even listening to the music.
Written during a winter spent in exile in East Germany, the titles of the tracks are not conventional song titles but rather snippets of sentences found within the lyrics. “I’ll Be A Ghost For You” is heartbreaking in its honesty, as Spoon sings of a love that, although strong enough to transcend the flesh, does not negate the singer’s need to equate death with finally finding a home. Although much of the subject matter is similarly dark (colonialism, agoraphobia, alienation), what saves the album from being a morose, self indulgent release is that all of it is sung in Spoon’s sweetly hopeful voice, without a trace of bitterness or pity. If there was ever a testament to the resilience of the human spirit, this is it.
Melissa Smith