Rae Spoon - Not Dead Yet
Coax Records
Released August 11th, 2023
Rae Spoon has had a difficult stretch of years. The Polaris and Lambda award nominated multi-disciplinary and genre-bending musician was diagnosed with cervical cancer in the spring of 2020, immediately before the first shutdowns began as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. For a trans person with multiple disabilities and C-PTSD, the healthcare system is all too often a hostile place, and Spoon writes openly about the “discrimination, indignities, [and] medical abuse” that they suffered while undergoing their treatments within that labyrinthine system. In spite of this, they have also found for themselves a space to experience kinship, togetherness, community and connection. Finding a thread between these two dichotomies and drawing them together with a deft hand and unquenchably playful spirit, Spoon has emerged with their tenderly triumphant album, Not Dead Yet.
Recorded in sessions with friends and collaborators between Montreal and Vancouver, Spoon produced the album themself, layering candescent synthesizers, drum machines and guitars over spirited contributions of strings, bass, keyboards and harp. From the opening guitar feedback, “ICU” explodes with the embodied joy that permeates the album. “I Think I Was A Person” colors in the darker side; as Spoon sings: “I wanna live / But not like this.” The dehumanizing nature of navigating health care and sickness is rendered in a kind of pastel-hued melancholy, highlighting Spoon’s rare ability to explore heavy, painful themes with a featherlight brush, drawing from it a deeper resonance than words alone can approximate.
The runtime is short, but by the end of the album I find myself full. It speaks to Spoon’s practiced hand as a songwriter: through some turn of magic, they are able to work within the archetypal three minute pop formula to condense and distill three years of life, love, suffering, loss, and self-discovery, while pulling no punches and foregoing all platitudes. It is maybe the most sincere music you will hear this year.
I can think of no better tribute to the generous brilliance that suffuses Not Dead Yet than Spoon’s own words. As they sing on “WTFIT”: “I did not choose my journey, but I’ll rearrange my plans / I learned where the edge is, and all the shapes I am.” For those among us who have suffered in sickness and for those among us who have wondered how much of life is left, these rallying words are music for the spirit. And thanks to Spoon, it is music we can dance to.
