How do we find purpose in a society that increasingly fosters disparities of all kinds? What is the alternative to a capitalist model of worth? For Moira Smiley, the key is in the rhizome. In botany, the rhizome refers to systems of roots growing outward instead of downward. As a philosophical model put forth by Deleuze and Guattari, it gestures toward symbiosis, describing diverse nodes interconnected in a mutually beneficial network with no part inherently more important than another. Its emphasis on the importance of every element of a given community and the relationships between them gives it a widespread appeal–it’s an every-person model of the world.
On The Rhizome Project, Smiley puts this orientation into admirable creative practice. An audiovisual work in which the central album of music is accompanied by stories and photos related to each tune, it maps out Smiley’s network, tracing the influences that make their way into her work to better elucidate the layers of meaning therein. It’s a strikingly generous way to involve her community. Smiley plays and sings alongside over a dozen guests in her music and features a range of Vermonter friends and neighbors in her book, some professional musicians, others working in very different spheres.
Alongside portraits photographed by Fiona Small, Smiley’s stories explore these neighbors’ lives and their relationships to the songs she’s chosen. As she highlights the inherent and non-quantifiable value of everyday people and connections, she also takes time to advocate against war and violence. It’s all very compelling, with messages well worth reading.
The music that informs these stories, for which her Rhizome String Quartet typically backs Moira Smiley, is equally thoughtful. Largely interpretations and arrangements of North Atlantic spiritual, folk, and neo-folk songs are carefully curated to highlight values of peace and freedom. In haunting harmony with tUnE-yArDs‘ Merrill Garbus, she sings a powerful rendition of the melancholy Appalachian ballad “Go Dig My Grave”, a song about dying for love. “Mourning Dove”, co-authored by Smiley and Solas founding member Séamus Egan, is a heartfelt reflection on deep and abiding love. Well-known Anglo-Celtic folk song “My Son David” has a bitter, electronic edge that suits its story of brother killing brother; singer-songwriter Taylor Ashton and Smiley sing their duet with soft sorrow.
From song to song, Smiley’s melodious voice is the critical thread bringing together a diverse lyrical tapestry. Jean Ritchie’s “Now Is the Cool of the Day” leads into Welsh folk song “Ar Lan Y Môr”; Johnny Moynihan’s “Standing on the Shore” into oft-recorded English round “Soul Cake” and then into Gullah spiritual “Oh, Watch the Stars”. As The Rhizome Project nears its close, Smiley interweaves Bill Caddick’s soothing “John O Dreams” with Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s entrancing “Sleeping and Waking” as spoken by Summar Taha and Deborah Felmeth in Ramallah and Vermont, respectively. Appropriately for an album invested in roots and shoots, a simple, stately iteration of Wendell Berry’s “Great Trees” offers the glorious note on which the album ends: “O light come down to earth, be praised!”
It would be unfair to put Moira Smiley’s work in a single box, but it does seem fitting to note how fully she embodies the core ideals of contemporary folk music. Smiley looks to songs and styles from the past to express her thoughts on the present and does so with profound reverence for and understanding of her source material and everyone involved in it, whether neighbor, colleague, or friend. The Rhizome Project is organically profound, one of Smiley’s most exciting and ambitious endeavors in a career full of wondrous moments.