Even if you’ve never heard of Ali Handal, you’ve probably heard her music. The L.A.-based singer-songwriter’s material has been featured on everything from HBO’s Sex and the City to WB’s Dawson’s Creek, as well as on numerous film scores, radio shows, and even on Northwest and KLM Airlines’ in-flight audio programming. But the industrious Handal has a solo career as well, and plenty to say on her own terms.
Her second release, Breathing Underwater, employs a bare-bones instrumentation of vocals, acoustic guitar, electric bass, and percussion to inspire the listener to join her inward journey, an exploration of her hopes, fears, and dreams about love and family. The title track is even more direct; it’s an invitation for someone specific to swim in the deep emotional waters in which she resides.
What’s left unsaid is whether that someone accepts the invitation, and that ambivalence colors a wide swath of the album. “Soft in the Middle” shows Ali in a bravado stance, seemingly tough enough to handle the route to love’s “prize”. “You Mean That Much to Me” and “Sweet Scene” both deal with on-again/off-again romance; the latter is striking in its light, sweet musical treatment of a heavy conversation between two lovers.
Ali dedicates three songs to her family, saving the most unapologetically upbeat tune — written for her sister Sarah — for last. “The Ride” is fast-paced and unlike anything else on the record, yet it still connects musically and spiritually.
But the most direct message is also the most powerful. The album’s first single, “I Miss You”, demonstrates that cleanly, albeit with a twist at the end. It starts with the interplay of Ali’s hauntingly enticing vocals and rich acoustic guitar parts and textures, but the subtle support of the late Wes Wehmiller’s basslines brings the music to a deeper place. Dark in tone but light in feel, his grooves and countermelodies dance across the album, while leaving maximum space for Ali’s guitar to carry the record.
Listen closely to several of the guitar solos (Ali plays all guitar parts herself), and you’ll hear the sound of a Baby Taylor sitting atop the mix, sometimes “effect”-ed beyond recognition and at others just naturally exposed. It fits the material on several levels, and they all work.
— Bryan Beller
Even if you’ve never heard of Ali Handal, you’ve probably heard her music. The L.A.-based singer-songwriter’s material has been featured on everything from HBO’s Sex and the City to WB’s Dawson’s Creek, as well as on numerous film scores, radio shows, and even on Northwest and KLM Airlines’ in-flight audio programming. But the industrious Handal has a solo career as well, and plenty to say on her own terms.