Abigail Dowd

About

Abigail Dowd, a singer-songwriter and guitarist, describes herself as a story catcher and mystic. She grew up in the American South, and after wide travel she builds songs from ancestral dreams, saint lore, combat stories, family myths, Scots graveyards, Native trails and Eastern mantras. Her newest record, Saints and Warriors, begins with the Mul Mantra, Ek Ong Kar, carrying that thread through grooves and lyrics that feel like half-remembered stories. Jason Richmond, known for work with the Avett Brothers and The War and Treaty, produced and engineered it, giving it a warm, unhurried and roomy sound. The songs tell of grief, a mother giving up her baby, a saint stepping out of an old painting and ghost lights on a Carolina backroad. Dowd says the album tries to move past the split between saint and warrior toward simply being human. One review places its bluesy neo-soul between Joy Oladokun and Patti Smith, and another hears echoes of Joan Armatrading's early career. It is meant for close, attentive listening rather than background play.