sunny ozell

Glaciers and floods are far apart. But is it distance or time that divides?Go ahead: take the distance between us and divide it in half. Divide it in half again. And again. Again. The distance gets smaller and smaller but never equals zero. So it is impossible for us to touch each other. Yet somehow we do.How, then? Math and physics— blah blah blah. No. Time and sound— music. Yes.Music is just sound traveling through time. Music is just vibrations in the air. But somehow it melts all our glacial doubts about ever really touching one another. Somehow music dissolves that distance between us— until the flood is far from far away. It is here. Now. It is the voice of Sunny.When she sings, she lets herself unfold, open and vulnerable like a paper-pasted Valentine— the kind you made in grade school, all worried about cooties and wishing you were cool.When she sings, she coos and roars— soothing moans soar out of her throat, throttle-forward on a motorboat.When she sings, she’s dreamy and ethereal a la Hope Sandoval, emotionally virile a la Fiona Apple, powerful and compelling a la Nina Simone.When she sings, she is the flood.And all that stuff about distance and physics and doubting if we can ever really touch each other?When she sings, she is a flower on the casket of doubt.—Brian Sauer, music critic and author of the novel 'i Cannot See Tomorrow'Boulder, Colorado