“A simple touch, a rested hand,” Sima Cunningham sings. “A fallen face, if he can / Remember her, lights his eye / When she comes to his side.” The song is “Nothing”, the opening track on her full-length solo debut, High Roller. It’s an attempt to get inside the head of a deceased uncle, known by the family as Johnny Boy, who was born with cerebral palsy. “When I play ‘Nothing’,” Cunningham explains, “I feel like I’m jumping between observing him from the outside and leaping into his head – swimming through his mental pictures and sensations.”
So much of High Roller seems like a deeply personal dive into Cunningham’s life, friends, and family. One gets the impression that the songwriter and musician, who also makes records with Macie Stewart as part of the duo Finom and has recorded and performed with Jeff Tweedy, Richard Thompson, Iron & Wine, Edith Frost, Chance the Rapper, and Twin Peaks, now has the opportunity to make her own statement. It’s filled with personal, emotionally felt lyrics and music covering vast territory.
“Nothing”, for example, begins deceptively, with the folky stylings of vocals and acoustic guitar, but soon spins out into full-band psych/progressive leanings (aided by the formidable drum/bass interplay of Charles Rumback and Dorian Gehring, the latter playing multiple instruments elsewhere and co-producing the album with Sima Cunningham). The song moves back and forth between tender, pastoral arrangements and the swirling, knottier sections, perhaps indicating what lies unknown in Johnny Boy’s mind.
With Cunningham on guitar and keyboards, she’s also ably aided on High Roller by Finom bandmate Stewart on string arrangements and backing vocals, additional drumming by Jack Henry and Spencer Tweedy, Andrew Sa, and Elizabeth Moen on backing vocals, and her brother Liam Kazar on bass. The effect is a tight-knit collective that navigates through Cunningham’s folk, psych, and power-pop adventures. High Roller is eclectic but seamless, with none of the stylistic shifts coming off as awkward or off-putting. The title track is a vibrant, swaggering stomper that sounds like vintage 1970s Los Angeles singer-songwriter pop with a few extra time signatures added to the mix.
Sometimes, the vintage, warm analog vibe that seems to suit Cunningham so well is expressed in such a pure, honest form that you’d swear you’re hearing a deep cut from a bygone era. “For Liam”, one of the strongest tracks, is a heartfelt, mid-tempo gem with subtle Leslie speaker effects, ringing acoustic guitars, spacey, guilty-pleasure electric guitars, and Tweedy’s eloquent, muted drumming landing squarely in Ringo Starr territory. Most likely an ode to her brother, Cunningham sings, “And I would die for you / I’d take a bullet, and I’d give one too / I’ve thought about it since the day when you came into my life.”
Sima Cunningham also has a way with a swooning, torchy country-tinged ballad, as “Abilene” moves into gospel territory with ethereal harmonies and keening pedal steel, and the somewhat similarly themed “Both Ways” sees her duetting with Clay Frankel in a song of simple grace and beauty. Compare this with “Hyenas”, which maintains a folk-like center but is filled with a mysterious, psychedelic undertone, as the listener is caught pleasantly but ever so slightly off-guard by the gentle genre shifts.
One of the most poignant tracks on High Roller is the final one, “Adonai”, which Cunningham wrote about a friend who committed suicide in high school “at a time when he couldn’t imagine anyone accepting him for who he was,” according to the press notes. The song is driven by Cunningham’s simple, gorgeous piano chords, starting life as a jazzy ballad. “I just want to put it out into the universe,” she sings, “That you are missed so much / The feel of your sweaty palms / And your funny take on psalms / I really miss your touch.” But the music soon takes on a wistful, upbeat nature, with the full band joining in, and the song becomes a celebration of Adonai’s life.
The different lyrical, musical, and emotional avenues Sima Cunningham travels throughout High Roller shows an artist overflowing with ideas, but – with a group of highly talented musicians backing her up – it always seems focused, deliberate, and often downright exuberant.