Taganga Sounds 2026
Guided By The Light
Laying her soul on the line to cleanse it of grief, Floridian chanteuse finds a way back home.
Long gaps in discography do a disservice to artists who try to define their identity and locate their listener, but this singer-songwriter had to take sabbaticals from recording and performing for family reasons, and there can hardly be any better justification for staying out of the spotlight. With eight years between her 2011 debut “Masquerade” and its 2018 follow-up “Closer To Red” and nine between the latter and her third platter, Jennifer Kaiser could have lost momentum – only she hasn’t. Such is the strength of “Guided By The Light” – written when she was caring for her mother and laid down soon after the lady passed away – that the pieces offered here hit hard and land blows in quite a few unexpected places.
Which is why, while for many country-oriented musicians dishing out their anguish would be par for the course, for Ms. Kaiser pain is a part of life, and starting the record with the cathartically uplifting “I Didn’t Lose The Light” – where she’s listing her woes before vowing to overcome adversity – should allow Kaiser to get the sorrow out of her system, yet Jennifer’s stylistic reach will prove to be much wider. As “Radiator” forays into prog-rock terrain to wrap the warbler’s spoken word in a percussive space, shaped by producers Fernando Perdomo and Andy Kravitz, who provide instrumental backing on most of the eleven tracks, these vibrant grooves color her melodic gloom in a brainwave-altering way. Still, there’s nothing otherworldly in the plea of “How Do You Like Me Now” that sets Kaiser’s velveteen voice against the sweet twang of six strings and Mellotron, with the “No one’s gonna change my mind” line revealing her emotional stamina.
Similar stubbornness may inform the defiantly orchestral “Everything Changes” that sees Jennifer channel her inner Lennon – however, she can also be seductive, sultry even, as the punchy “Waited For You” suggests in the purest pop manner, her stacked vocals exuding optimism in spades. Also supervised by DJ Tommy Radikales, “One Sided Dreamer” sounds deliberately retro-European, as the clean tones of the singer’s pipes are underscored with almost reggae fretboard figures, yet the sitar-tarred and handclap-helped cover of Joan Osborne’s “St. Teresa” shows the Miami dweller’s uncanny skill at appropriating other people’s material for her own passionate context, which the psyche-tinctured hymn “I Am Love” belongs to too. Perhaps, the piano-driven “Will I Have A Chance” aligns with traditional balladry, but its honesty and vulnerability transcend any cliché, and the Latino-tinged “I’m Not Afraid” removes all the vestiges of standard templates in order to effectively assemble several genres into a single piece, a tentative hit single.
“Why do I always smile when I feel so insecure?” By posing this question in the effervescently folksy “Break Of Dawn” that brings the album to a close, Jennifer Kaiser is reaching for closure and finally locates herself in a safe environment the audience will be happy to share. A staggering journey into the artist’s very soul, “Guided By The Light” must warrant repeated spins, especially from those eager to heal their wounds as well.
