{"id":6639,"date":"2012-06-13T01:26:55","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T08:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=6639"},"modified":"2012-06-13T01:27:19","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T08:27:19","slug":"dar-williams-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/06\/dar-williams-2\/","title":{"rendered":"DAR WILLIAMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

DAR WILLIAMS<\/h1>\n
\u00a0Making sense of the modern world through the myths of an ancient time \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
\n

When she titled her eighth and latest album In the<\/em> Time of Gods<\/em>, singer and songwriter Dar Williams wasn\u2019t just looking for something that sounded lofty. On the contrary, Williams has lately been fascinated with Greek mythology and its gods and goddesses\u2014Zeus, Hermes, Athena and their compatriots, whose tales she considers a prism through which to see the discord afflicting humanity today. If the connection to mythology seems a stretch, it simply reflects the world as Williams sees it. \u201cMy husband and I are TV addicts,\u201d she says. \u201cBut we see nothing but a lot of talking heads spewing a lot of blah, blah, blah. I believe that we are once again living in the time of the gods, which gives us all opportunity to step up and be a hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

The album\u2019s narrative boasts an ambitiously broad canvas, which Williams acknowledges by occasionally chuckling at her own elaborate explanations. \u201cIt involves power,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of noise and pontificating going on in the world lately. These days there\u2019s this moral ambiguity that makes it hard to find clarity. I\u2019m expressing that through these ancient heroes I embraced as a child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Produced by Kevin Killen (U2, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello), the album is built around Williams\u2019 familiar folk stylings and riveting melodies. Its depth reflects her rich background\u2014as a theater and religion major at Wesleyan University she was initially interested in activism and ecology, causes she still champions. She toyed with the idea of becoming an author, and in 1998 co-authored The Tofu Tollbooth<\/em>, a guide to finding vegetarian fare away from home. \u201cWhen I went to the merch booth after a show and noticed I had sold 10 CDs and only one book, it dawned on me that music was probably the right way to go,\u201d she recalls with a laugh.<\/p>\n

Clearly Williams chose the correct path. It\u2019s telling that she\u2019s been with the same label, Razor & Tie, since the company reissued her independent debut, The Honesty Room<\/em>, in the \u201990s. \u201cI was a little concerned about their reaction to this album,\u201d admits the singer, who makes her home in New York\u2019s Hudson Valley. \u201cThe concept isn\u2019t all that accessible. Actually, they asked me to keep it secret. But of course I can\u2019t keep a secret for more than 30 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Lee Zimmerman<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAR WILLIAMS \u00a0Making sense of the modern world through the myths of an ancient time \u00a0 When she titled her eighth and latest album In the Time of Gods, singer and songwriter Dar Williams wasn\u2019t just looking for something that sounded lofty. On the contrary, Williams has lately been fascinated with Greek mythology and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[3911,2328,1070,3910,3908,3912,3754,292,199,10156,3913,3184,3909],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6639"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6642,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6639\/revisions\/6642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}