Jenny Gillespie Mason has a rare quality: the ability to sound as though the recording was made in the room where you’re sitting. “Rungs of Love” opens with a guitar figure reminiscent of late-period Bert Jansch — the same unhurried fingerpicking, the same confidence that the melody will find its own way. Noah Georgeson’s production hand is nearly invisible here: the mix breathes, giving the acoustic guitar a space where you can hear finger on string, the shift of a pick, the wood of the body.
The lyrics work with the image of a ladder — love as ascent, rung by rung, toward something greater than two people. It’s a risky theme: spiritual folk slides easily into blissful vagueness. Mason maintains the balance through specificity of detail and a voice carrying audible weariness, which means experience. Psychedelic textures emerge in the background like watercolor strokes: gentle reverb, ghostly overtones, a barely perceptible widening of the stereo field toward the finale.
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After a break from songwriting, Mason returns with a song that sounds like it was written over years — and simultaneously in a single evening by a window. The track is short, focused, without a single superfluous element. A welcome reminder that folk still only needs a voice and six strings.
*The song was submitted via SubmitHub. The editorial decision was made independently.
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