Joshua Ketchmark - Under Plastic Stars (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.joshuaketchmark.com/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/josh.ketchmark

Written by Drew East, posted by blog admin

Being a reviewer is really a dream job.  You get to discover new music that you’ve missed and sometimes music from established artists that you couldn’t catch either.  There’s so much stuff out there with the ease of home-recording taking over the market that you’re bound to forget to check out something.  Reviewers on the other hand have it easy and being one has led me to the music of Joshua Ketchmark and his 12^th release Under Plastic Stars.  

The gravel path opener “We Were Everything” sets the bar at a high quality level from the very beginning.  Acoustic guitars mingle with Ketchmark’s sturdy voice as the song slowly picks up speed; allowing room for a few deep bass grooves and tapping, perhaps brush-played drums that keep the music always moving forward.  “Every Mystery” reduces the atmospheric quality to a warm simmer nearly solely fronted by Ketchmark’s gleaming acoustic guitar work, trippy organ playing, countrified rhythms and full-throat vocals that really hit the melody mark.  Taking things down a dirtier, danker alleyway “Let It Rain” goes for a downtempo, rhythm n’ blues feel with more focus provided on the bass guitar and piano than just simple guitar-centered shucking and jiving.  The album’s first run ends with a mesmerizing ballad, “Lucky at Leavin’” that sees Joshua and a female vocalist giving a touching update on the Jones/Wynette classic harmony vocals.  

Picking up the pace, “Hereafter” brings back the rhythm section alongside some twangy acoustic guitars and some summer-baked slide licks for a Mason Dixon sweetened ballad that acts as the perfect foil to the buzzing, rock n’ roll-y “Get Out Alive.”  “Get out Alive” features some of the album’s only plugged in guitars and it’s a jam that would sure to bring a smoky club audience to their feet and cheering for the act so gracious enough to deliver it.  “Saturday Night” stays uptempo but retains a thoughtful smolder in its hickory steamed guitar melodies, plaintive rhythms and heartfelt vocals that really dig under the skin and stick with you long after the album stops playing.  “Harm’s Way” is another slice of delicious Carolina pie cut from folk/country cloth and mainly featuring Josh and his guitar howling away into the night.  The glory bound “Sweet Surrender” utilizes piano to get its main point across while the rhythm section jostles Ketchmark’s vibrant guitar into some steady groove, although things never really take off on a rock n’ roll path again over the course of the record.  “17” implants another stunning male/female duet into a livelier more rocking piece than the prior contemplation of “Lucky at Leavin’” while the closing duo of “Losing Control” and “The Great Unknown” end the album on a folk-country dirt road.  

Everything about Under Plastic Stars is a musical home run; a true taste of musical Americana that’s as friendly and familiar is a Fourth of July cookout.  This release is a modern classic of singer/songwriter chops with plenty of intricacies and variety woven into the aural fabric of Ketchmark’s chosen sound.  If you like your music mostly acoustic based but unafraid of experimentation and great vocalizing, then this release is most certainly worth your time!

Chris Murphy - Water Under the Bridge (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://chrismurphymusic.com/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/chrismurphymusic1/

TWITTER: https://www.facebook.com/chrismurphymusic1/

Written by Daniel Boyer, posted by blog admin

The Cajun cooked instrumentals and blues trappings of California-based Chris Murphy and the Blind Blake Blues Band come storming to life on their debut full-length Water Under the Bridge.  At the heart of the hurricane stands Murphy; violinist, fiddler, songwriter and bandleader.  The man practically eats, sleeps and breathes a style/class that you just don’t find with modern music.  There’s nothing retro about the 14 songs on offer here, on the contrary this is a grooving record with an authentically old soul on which you’ll hear bluegrass, blues, jazz, rock, folk, country, r & b and soul.  Each of these musical ideals are distinctly felt and it’s all wrapped up with a big band mindset that ruled the 30s to the early 60s, especially. 

Not only does Murphy play the role of multi-instrumentalist and lead vocalist but he’s also the sole composer of every tune contained on Water under the Bridge.  Additionally, alongside co-producer/mixer Joshua Cutsinger, Chris also grabs another production credit (he’s collaborated and produced with everyone from Steve Hodges and Larry Taylor of Tom Waits’ Band to punk legends Mike Watt and John Doe of punk legends The Minutemen and X, respectively.  Obviously, Murphy recognizes the talent and merit in many different types of music and he’s not afraid to include this wide breadth in his very own recordings. 

Each tune on Water Under the Bridge has a unique tasting flavor and literally walls upon walls of down-home instrumentation with the strings remaining a focal point.  In many ways this release brings the Phil Spector “Wall of Sound” to energetic rural music that is literally a guidebook of every classic American music genre known to man.  Raucous ragtime jazz piano, countrified acoustics, a rockabilly rhythm set-up, fireball fiddle and swinging violins color tracks like opener “Moveable Feast,” the deliberately ethnic-kissed neoclassical guitars of “My Spanish Lover,” 1940s jazz club swagger of “Dog Ear Blues” and the title track all feel quite congruent with Murphy’s vision of these disparate styles of music.  This is just one turns Water Under the Bridge takes though.    

Then you’ve got the more midpaced, from the gut blues numbers that allow for some hard-edged yet clean riffing, a choice featured performance from the upright bass, cool collected tempos and Chris’ stellar work on the violins, fiddles and acoustics.  The stellar “Joan Crawford Dances the Charleston,” the smoldering downbeat of “Riverboat Blues,” the crunchy and rowdy prowler “Tomcat Blues” which illustrates some serious Hank Williams Sr. chops from the sizzling rockabilly/country musical split right down to the ornery lyrics and the hardliner grooves of “Tarbox Blues” and “Middleweight Champion” are all choice cuts utilizing the aforementioned rockabilly blues handbook.  You also get some Bill Monroe minded, blue-collar bluegrass that positively goes for broke during the high-speed chase of “Table for Two,” “The Lemon Rag” as well as the above-named title track’s hybridization of several styles (bluegrass being a major theme) and “Benzedrine Shuffle’s” sloth-ier realization of the sound.  The album caps off with a hypnotic soundtrack piece of barebones beat-keeping (a floor tom or someone stomping) and sunburnt violin called “Cheer up Mickey” that would be at home in a Clint Eastwood western’s film score.   

Chris Murphy and his merry men can do it all in terms of chops, ability and performance.  They make this stuff look easy on Water Under the Bridge and each track is one that you’re going to want to revisit over and over again to continue to catch of all the little nuances the band throw into their playing, production and arranging.  These cats have a mastery of old school jamming capabilities and they make every inch of every style their own on Water Under the Bridge.   

Alpha Mule - Peripheral Vision (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.alphamulemusic.com/

BANDCAMP: https://alphamule.bandcamp.com/

Written by Frank McClure, posted by blog admin

An excellent debut here from traditional roots music duo Alpha Mule here and the band’s 10 original composition really explores some varied ground; more so than your average country n’ folk twosome.  With the core of the music relying on banjo, acoustic guitar and vocals, it’s really a treat to hear the music come off this fresh and original.  Let’s face it, as much as the genre is one of my favorites it can be a little bit confining and hard to take in an inventive direction. 

“Corpus Christi” starts things off with a gravelly, dust-storm of driving bass grooves, limber acoustic guitar/banjo workouts and smooth vocal harmonies from the main players, Joe Forkan (guitar/vocals) and Eric Stoner (banjo/vocals).  It has a bit of a bleak feel, especially when compared with the immediately following “On the Moon.”  Here the tempos congeal into a mid-paced trot instead of a light brigade charge and the tuneful instrumental wanderings bring in a bit of everything from bluegrass to ol’ tyme country with even some pop songwriting in place to create hooky verse and chorus vocal arrangements.  The pace further slows its runaway wagon axles on the steel guitar laced title track which should really provide some enjoyment for fans of Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and all of the formative stars the genre has seen. 

The twosome retain their restraint on “The Distance’s” tranquil balladry before taking things up two or three notches on the 50s rock n’ roll jive of “Pavlov.”  Skillful sonic use of percussion and a mean upright bass foundation kicks the guitars and banjo into a furious overdrive with bluesy baritone vocals to match.  “Mule in the Mine” is a unique mix of styles that reckon of coal-mining country with riverside guitars and banjos plucking away as Stoner and Forkan match vocals wits along the way.  Accoutrements such as the addition of the rhythm section and harmonica further the depth of this tune, although it’s interesting to hear the stripped-down duo version available in the bonus tracks to see how the tune developed on the trail.  Of the remaining tracks, “Step Outside” and somber closer “Empire” harness some vast folk expanse and cool the mood off to a melodic, harmony-filled simmer that’s truly a stroke of low key brilliance to behold, while “The Ballad of Huell Howser” and “Music of Our Hearts” pile on the vintage country influences with the latter possessing some of the strongest vocal work on the album. 

This Southern California duo really knows how to get down and it’s the listeners that benefit across the 15 tracks of Peripheral Vision (there are 5 bonus cuts all told).  These songs move and shake, stirring up the soul and the brain during the process.  With a debut as tight as this one, it’s going to be a pleasure to watch Alpha Mule develop their sound further across future albums.  Here’s to a long, illustrious career for the guys, you’ve certainly won over this humble scribe; very good stuff and highly recommended.

Sarah Donner - Black Hole Heart (2016)

OFFICIAL: https://www.sarahdonner.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/sarahdonner/

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/sarahdonner

MUSIC VIDEO: (PHOENIX)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j13Jwyb-AnA

Written by Frank McClure, posted by blog admin

One of the most beautiful aspects of Sarah Donner’s album Black Hole Heart is how fresh these familiar acoustic soundscapes sound in her hands. Donner has an unique talent for making the textures and tones of traditional folk music come alive with an almost pop-song like energy and has a penchant for structuring her folk-influenced tunes in a manner that mimics the orchestrations common in pop songs. It makes many of the tracks on Black Hole Heart stand out in a crowded musical style where it’s often a struggle to tell the difference between various musicians. Donner also possesses a set of pipes that rate among the most expressive instruments either on the indie or mainstream scene today – she comes off, truly, as a singer capable of handling any material. She wisely writes songs, however, that play to her strengths and the dozen songs on Black Hole Heart are fully realized musical pieces with considerable melodic and vocal strengths.   

The best possible opening for the album is “Phoenix” and Donner, thankfully, concurs. The melodicism of the vocal and arrangement alike have a gentle, but lively, glitter that work perfectly together and Donner gives one of her best singing performances while still lacking some of the overt vocal pyrotechnics we hear on later tracks. Piano and acoustic guitar work extremely well together on the superbly constructed “Black Hole Heart” and the personal nature of the lyric nevertheless touches on emotions we can all relate to and wisely avoids too many specific details that might isolate it from our experience. The folk song influences running through “Tamsen Donner 1847” somewhat obscure the five star writing job that forms the heart of the song. Donner’s done a great job conjuring the atmosphere of a doomed voyage in her lyrics and the crystalline musical backing is quite appropriate for the work. The rustic, bluegrass tinged qualities of “Athena” means the song is essentially cut from the same cloth as the aforementioned “Tamsen Donner 1847”, but the jaunty air of the musical arrangement couldn’t contrast any sharper with the earlier song’s mood.

Mike Batchlor’s organ work and fine trumpet playing from Phillip Fillion distinguish “The Flood” musically from the surrounding songs. Donner’s vocal excellence is just as impactful with the added instrumentation and she clearly draws a certain degree of inspiration from the near-shuffle guitar and unusual instrumentation. Some humor creeps in near the end of “The Longest Road”, but this is otherwise another affecting, personally-slanted tune that Donner gives a zesty, impassioned reading of. “Sinking Ship” is reminiscent of the earlier “Tamsen Donner 1847” in a few ways, but it’s most notable another character driven piece where Donner embodies the voice for a narrator on the cusp of losing their life. Despite the weighty scenario, the music maintains a tasteful air rife with haunting atmospherics. Black Hole Heart solidifies Donner’s standing as one of the best singer/songwriters working on the indie scene today.

Grace Freeman - Shadow (2017)

OFFICIAL: http://www.gracefreeman.net/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/gracefreemanmusic/

Written by Raymond Burris, posted by blog admin

Nineteen year old Grace Freeman’s solo debut Shadow is the sort of album you want to start off a career with. It establishes her as a talent of the first rank with vocal and songwriting skills advanced far past her age. Freeman carries the album’s eleven songs with the sort of unassuming confidence we sense in performers far her senior and with a vast repository of musical experiences and doesn’t require much instrumentation to bring it off. Much of the album is constructed around piano and acoustic guitar, but its low-fi trappings are no impediment to the release sounding modern and relevant. There are some older influences at work in Freeman’s music, but it’s equally clear that more current songwriters hold an imaginative sway over her work. Regina Spektor is her clearest connection in this area, but it isn’t anything that ever limits Freeman’s potential. Instead, she does what any great artist, regardless of medium, manages – she takes what she needs from the predecessors who shaped her, filters it through her own experiences and budding artistry, so that it emerges in her work as something informed, yes, but also distinctly hers.

We can hear this most strongly on the album’s more meditative tracks. “Oliver”, the album’s opener, “Shadow”, “Another Long Night”, and “Muddy Puddles” are among the most melancholy moments on the release. The first track rates as one of the best written lyrics included here and Freeman invests it with the right balance of storytelling dramatics and atmosphere thanks to her higher register voice. “Shadow”, the only one of the aforementioned four tracks reliant on piano, also incorporates more of a band approach with the inclusion of a rhythm section. It gives the title song an unexpectedly stately feel that proves to be an unusual mix with Freeman’s intimate lyrical content. “Another Long Night” and “Muddy Puddles” are built around the acoustic guitar. The first track comes across as much more personal in scope while “Muddy Puddles” sounds more like an imaginative act rather than something torn from the pages of Freeman’s autobiography.

Freeman never aims for pop or radio glory on Shadow, but that doesn’t mean her material never manifests any commercial appeal. “Trying to Say Goodbye” and “Dreams” both take up a different musical feel than the rest of the album and their distinctly brighter hue is a welcome change in direction on a collection that often approaches the listener with deadly seriousness. Drums, piano, and bass return on the album closer “Gemini” and the tempo picks up in such a way that it brings Shadow to a satisfying, sweeping conclusion. This is one of the best solo debuts in recent memory and puts Grace Freeman out front in a way that is certain to gain her some much deserved attention.