After teaming up with her half sister, Lucy Roche, for 2015's Songs In The Dark, the Canadian singer-songwriter returns with her first solo album since 2012’s Come Home To Mama. That record was partially a response to the death of her mother, folk singer Kate McGarrigle, as well as the birth of her first child, Arcangelo, and reflections on being married (to her long-time producer Brad Albetta). "A farewell to youth and the anxieties and the angst of youth," she said at the time. Goodnight City is a continuation of this maternal, relationship maturation, and was made shortly after the birth of her second child, Franci.

Unsurprisingly, and given the unending propensity for the Wainwright family to talk and write about each other, Goodnight City features three songs explicitly about these children, and represent the wildly differing musical palettes on show. 'Window' (about Arcangelo) is experimental, like a musical stream of consciousness, her voice following the musical patterns; while closing track ‘Francis’ is an romantic piano ballad written and played by brother Rufus. Sandwiched in-between, musically speaking, is 'Francis', strongly reminiscent of Patti Smith, and which is both a celebration of her newest child, a back-story explaining the child's name, and also a warning for the future.

Generally, Goodnight City is less autobiographical, less intensely confessional, and more outward looking; a mix of the dramatical and dreamy. Despite the privileges afforded her (famous musical family etc) she's struggled to find security and confidence, but there is a spring in her step here.

Wainwright is also indulging in her varied and brilliantly nuanced singing voice, turning her hand, in turn, to playful theatricality, punkish spewing, jazzy inflections, and elegant classicism. She's always had an extravagant, yet deeply controlled voice, and Goodnight City is a platform for her main ‘instrument’, helped by the contributions of writers and lyricists Beth Orton, Michael Ondaatje, TUnE-yArDs’ Merrill Garbus, the aforementioned Rufus, cousin Lily Lanken, auntie Anne McGarrigle, and Glen Hansard.

Wainwright claims she didn’t have enough songs, so her co-producer Thomas Bartlett suggested getting friends to contribute, which they did. Maybe she sets the bar high for herself, because her own compositions are, in the main, superior to the supplied ones. Songs such as wired jazz-theatre number ‘Before The Children Came Along’ where Wainwright really hits the high notes, The Gun Club-esque, vaguely psychobilly ‘So Down’, the folksy-pop electronica of ‘Traveller’ (a song about memories living on, with reference to the untimely death of Bartlett’s brother from cancer), the part-French sung and moody electro-jazz-sax-infused ‘Look Into My Eyes’ and the lead track, and most memorable tune on the album, ‘Around The Bend’, part autobiographical, part fiction, a reminder of the wild days of Wainwright’s pre-children past: “I’ve been going around the bend, taking lots of pills and things, I've been seeing him again,” she sings.

Certainly, Wainwright views Goodnight City as being more hopeful, joyful and lighter than her previous records and admits this probably has to do with parenthood and maturing. Sometimes she lets off a bit of steam, at other times it’s contemplative. But, always, on her own songs and that of others, she delivers in such naturally expressive ways, that few others can match.

"I've always had that weight on me, I don't know why exactly, but I feel that with this [record] that sort of changed a bit,“Wainwright says. “Maybe I'm one of those people — I'm hoping that I'm one of those people — that the second half of my life is going to be better than the first." And as she sings on ‘Around The Bend’, “Watch out for my life / watch out for my creativity.” I, for one, will continue to do just that!
Jeff Hemmings