Mel Parsons Essentials

Mel Parsons may be from Aotearoa New Zealand, but she has lived and toured in enough far-flung locales that her songs can often double as travelogues: see the wistful “Alberta Sun” and the frisky “Far North Coast”. Since 2009, the alt-folk singer-songwriter has been documenting her globe-trotting alongside her inner turmoil on a series of handsomely arranged albums. Parsons’ lyrics are memorably forthright across the board: “Bones” sees her lament that she’s supposed to be “light, bright and superficial” and “a fountain of happy thoughts”, while she muses on the myriad benefits of music over babbling guitar melodies on the liberating kiss-off “Far Away”. And on the cello-kissed “Don’t Wait”, she invites Canada’s Ron Sexsmith in for a stripped-back duet. As candid as she is, Parsons shares her thoughts with a quiet sureness that never hints at exaggeration, let alone bombast. She even calls out that patient absorption of life experience on the self-deprecating title track of her 2022 album Slow Burn: “I’m slow on the lesson, I’m slow on the learn/I guess I’m just a slow burn”.