Reviews

Award winning singer-songwriter-guitarist, Jackie Carlyle has made a positive change in her life and is finding solace in creating music with an ethereal glow and a modern-pop compass.  Stepping away from the traditional sounding folk and alternative country prototypes which were the blueprints for her albums Into The Light and Souls In The Breeze, Carlyle has found her stride in welding a synth pop-wand with an ambient folk-sheen in her new songs, “The Friendship” and “The Sound Of Angles Singing.”  Collaborating with composer/arranger Alexsey Zahkarenko, Carlyle’s songs show her mettle for making inspirational material, and her desire to experiment with various sonic textures like glistening chime-like embers and undulating vibrations which produce a trance-like effect that holds the listener in a spellbinding grip.  The music moves with a smooth eloquence that bodes well with Carlyle’s vocals, and engulfs her in an angelic lighting.

Carlyle’s interest in songwriting can be pinpointed to Paul Simon.  She recalls, “I remember when I was very young, the first time I heard the first few lines to the Paul Simon song, “Hello Darkness, my old friend, I ‘ve come to talk with you again.”  She shares, “I felt for the first time in my life that I wasn’t alone on this earth, that there was someone else who understood, and so I took the poetry that I had under my bed and began to feel some pride in what I did.  And I wrote, and wrote, all night long.  Sometimes, because I wanted to make other people feel the way Paul Simon had made me feel…not alone.”

Carlyle shows Simon’s knack for grabbing audiences by their heartstrings with lyrics like “No one I know gets a free pass / Or sails through life on a sea of glass / No one's an island anymore / We all need a ride from shore to shore / So won't you think of me like you think of a ship / The friend who sails you home from every trip / When you are lost and all alone / I am the Friendship that sails you home” from her song "The Friendship."

Jackie Carlyle has written numerous songs, and many have received special recognition..  Her song “You Are My Anchor” made the record charts in Holland and peaked at #2. Her song “Into The Light” was donated to The American Cancer Society for one of their charities, and she wrote several theme songs for humane organizations like “Souls In The Breeze” for the Jewish Agency for Israel , and “The Lion Walks With Me” as a tribute to the Indian Yoga Master, Siri Singh Sahib, Yogi Bhajan.

Jackie Carlyle has always been an inspirational artist, but her new material is pointing her towards a New Age and embracing modern pop in a way that makes her a forerunner of the genre.  It’s a change for the better.