Optic Yellow Felt - Optic Yellow Felt

Optic Yellow Felt – Optic Yellow Felt
2011, Catapult

You have to say one thing for Optic Yellow Felt, they are certainly original.  From the name, to their sound, there isn’t a great deal about Optic Yellow Felt that you can pin down to someone else.  Except for their vocalist, that is.  Fans of the Rheostatics and Martin Tielli will be very curious to hear lead vocalist Victor Nader, whose vocal sound is eerily similar to those of Tielli.  Optic Yellow Felt took over a year to record their self-titled debut album, working closely with producer/sound engineer Roy Cicala (Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan) to bring the band’s original sound and style out in the recording.

Formed by brothers Victor (vox, guitar) and Lino Nader (bass, backing vox) while living in the United States, Optic Yellow Felt has grown to six members.  Nando Morsani (piano, vox); Ricardo Pires (sax, vox); Eduardo Marson (guitar, vox) and Tiago B. (drums, vox) round out the lineup.  The songwriting style is rough at times, but there is a certain charm in Optic Yellow Felt’s music that is hard to ignore.  Victor Nader writes in stumbling style, almost as if he is falling into his thoughts than thinking them.  This comes to light on the opening track, “Captain Of The Seas”, a perseverating love song that goes in logical circles.  This leads into the ambient singer/songwriter air of “Close To Sadness”.  While Nader has a similar sound to Martin Tielli, he doesn’t appear to have the breath support that leads to good pitch and tonal control. 

The album becomes a study in intriguing and sometimes chaotic arrangements, and a well-meaning but ill-trained vocalist with an enigmatic sound but poor fundamentals.  Optic Yellow Felt likes to experiment with multi-part song structure, but on more than one occasion kills off a song before it even gets going with extended introductions.  Like most bands with potential Optic Yellow Felt manages to pull off one track late in the game that really reflects what they are capable of.  “Talkin’ N Talkin’” is a solid love song with some real potential.  It’s easily the best composition on the album, and gives you a hint as to where Optic Yellow Felt might go in the future.    

Much of the rest of Optic Yellow Felt is the audio document of a band trying to figure out who they are and what their sound is.  The songwriting is uneven and rough (but not without its little golden moments).  Optic Yellow Felt is sort of a hipster act; messy and still figuring itself out, but purveying an original sound that has yet to have the rough edges worn smooth.  Don’t be surprised if Optic Yellow Felt becomes something of a phenomenon down the line.  For now, there is still work to be done.

Rating:  3 Stars (Out of 5)

Learn more at web.oyf.com.br. 

Review: Jenn Grant - Echoes

Jenn Grant - Echoes
2009, Six Shooter Records

If you don’t know who Jenn Grant is, you might want to make the calendar for today as the day you first encountered her. Besides being Wildy's World's Artist of the Month for September, 2009, the Prince Edward Island, Canada native has made a name for herself with highly personal songs that flow from the heart like warmth from the sun. Grant has earned several East Coast Music Award nominations, and opening slots for such Canadian artists as Martin Tielli (Rheostatics), Hawksley Workman, Hayden, Great Lake Swimmers and The Weakerthans. Grant releases her third CD, Echoes, in the United States on September 29, 2009. Echoes, continues in the same, heart-on-her-sleeve vein under the guiding hand of Producer/pianist Jonathan Goldsmith (Bruce Cockburn). Echoes may be a challenging listen, and is certainly a bit off the beaten path, but is worth the time you’ll put into it.

Echoes opens with the rambling, pensive Heartbreaker, which rises out of the depths of melancholy sounding like the Yin to Feist's Yang. This impression is fed by both Grant's shadowy alto voice and a quirky, Feist-like nature drawn in burgundy and charcoal. Where Are You Now is a beautiful song of longing and loss with an almost classical feel to it; the accompanying string arrangement lends a depth and weight to balance Grant's lyric vocal line, creating a moment of musical beauty that is deeply tangible. Blue Mountains has a vaguely dream-like feel to it; a love song built as much on the ideal of running off together as in stand still. It's an unusual and beautiful testament to emotion that's part Be Good Tanyas and part Feist. Parachutes is a wonderful conglomeration of Emo art song and girl-group glitz (although only briefly). The song is dark and light and thoroughly ambivalent on love, life and anything else that's important. It's a statement from the heart in all of its mixed beauty and darkness in song.

I Was Your Woman has a strong link stylistically to Fiona Apple; a look at what was and the process of getting over the loss. Grant's voice is full of dark sorrow here, wrapped up in that gorgeous alto with a metal edge running through the center. This song could be something of a show-stopper, but it's also imbued with that sort of temporary madness that comes with heartbreak. You'll think that Jenn Grant took a sabbatical with The Be Good Tanyas filling in on (I've Got) The Two Of You. Gorgeous vocal harmonies and an Appalachian feel inform this Chamber/Folk/Rock tune. The chorus is a bit repetitive, but it works here in a song deeper in emotion than thought. Sailing By Silverships sounds like the culmination of sonic development of the female songwriter in the past twenty years wrapped into one shining moment. Fans will hear elements of Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Fiona Apple and even Sinead O'Connor in this fantastical song juxtaposing the pain of loss with the search for understanding and purpose. The rhythmic and layered crescendo and then fade at the song is as powerful as a musical moment gets without words to accent meaning.

Fireflies takes on a distant country feel, accented by the presence of violin and hints of pedal steel guitar; wandering the magical corridor of catching lightning in a bottle and the fear of doing so. The arrangement here is beautiful in a vaguely haunting way, demanding the listener's attention with variegation and texture that usually resides far from anything in the popular realm. Hawaii continues the process of recovery, finding magic and the loss of words to describe it. Grant's voice is right on the raw edge of emotion here, deep within an arrangement that's full of gorgeous quirk. The cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart might seem a bit cliché at first, but Grant's performance makes it anything but cliché. It doesn't quite measure up to the Waltons' cover from the 1990's (perhaps not even Young's original does), but it's likely the second best cover of the song I've heard. Grant closes out Echoes with Everybody Loves You, a song of mourning of what's been lost and of hope for what's to come. There's a core of emotional strength here that's so apparent it will practically bowl over the listener. A brief epilogue, a half minute of I'll See You Again features Grant on piano sounding as if the recording were pulled from an old vinyl copy.

Echoes is an album full of heartbreak and hope. It is an acknowledgement of what Grant learned halfway through writing the album; Echoes is a breakup album born of a tumultuous relationship Grant was in at its beginning. In this case life imitated art, as it was the songwriting process that helped Grant to see where her heart was going. Consequently Echoes is a highly personal album full of the shadows and dark closets of Grant's heart as well as the patches of light. Pathos and power mix to inform the human spirit in the process of loss across the thirteen songs presented here. There are moments of beauty in both light and shadow, as Grant reveals her heart in a much more intimate fashion than you might expect. Echoes is brilliant in so many dimensions because it features Jenn Grant eschewing any sense of popular acceptance in favor of straightforward, honest writing. The song craft is highly involved and entrancing, and Grant's voice mixes elements of beauty and with starkly unique qualities to create a listening experience you simply can't pull yourself away from. I like an album to challenge me as a listener; Echoes does. And it's well worth the challenge. Echoes is a Wildy's World Certified Desert Island Disc. Don't miss it.

Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Jenn Grant at http://www.jenngrant.com/ or www.myspace.com/jenngrant1. Echoes drops in the US on September 29, 2009. If you can't wait until then you can purchase a copy of Echoes at Maple Music, or you can download the album through iTunes.

Socks For Dinosaurs – Miracles And Magic
2008, Socks For Dinosaurs

Socks For Dinosaurs is the brainchild of Kevin Cosgrove. Based Maryland, Cosgrove sought to build a musical community by recording an album of songs he wrote for friends to sing. The other goal of Socks For Dinosaurs was to build a signature sound without being tied to one particular style. It would appear that the goals of Socks For Dinosaurs have been met. Socks For Dinosaurs debut album, Miracles And Magic, is very distinctive and instantly recognizable.

Miracles And Magic opens with Here In This Moment, an avante-garde rock recording in the spirit of The Rheostatics. The lead vocalist on Here In This Moment even sounds a bit like Martin Tielli. The song itself is quite a pleasant listen, although the peripheral instrumental flourishes can get a bit distracting. Brazil plays on the edges of Latin Jazz. The melody line is quite listenable but the arrangement seems a bit out of time with the melody and lyrics. The odd placement/arrangement of instrumental soliloquies does end up mudding the musical waters a bit, although it seems that is perhaps the intent here. Tired explores the dark waters of sleep deprivation in an arrangement that wants to be beautiful but never quite crosses that line. Dark, minor key secondary melody lines ive this an almost disturbed sound that sticks out in the mind.
Is Love Real asks the age old question not in the dulcet sweet tones normally heard but in dark and disjointed minor keys; juxtaposing love and attraction as opponents rather than components of a whole. Weary Angel is a tribute that is sweet and full of sentiment that attempts to capture the melancholy grace of a classic country tune. In this instance Socks For Dinosaurs succeeds, although the running together of violin and pedal steel guitar in the bridge creates more dissonance than appealing sound. East Coast Land is an odd arrangement that sounds like it escaped from a 1970’s jazz vault. The melody and base arrangement are at least interesting, but there’s just too much going on in the periphery to allow a subtle intrigue to develop.

Change is as close as we get to a truly marketable tune, drawing on 1970’s soul and funk influences. This duet has some real highlights but still gets caught in Socks For Dinosaurs’ tendency to overproduce the songs presented here. It’s as if melody and harmony are never enough; like a painter who draws a perfect flower but then continues to add embellishment and effects until the perfection and even the character of the original is lost. The incessant tendency to tinker to make the music sound perfect to the creator is one that comes up often in music as well as other art forms can be the quick path to musical peril. Tar River follows somewhat the same path, coming across as a transitional piece from an off-off-off-Broadway show. Late At Night closes out the set in a select piece of jazz noir. This is the most enjoyable track on the disc, as Socks For Dinosaurs seems to pull back just a bit and let the song breathe.

Socks For Dinosaurs is afflicted with an inability to let their songs be songs. The endless push for the perfect sound or note or phrase turns art into a mercurial pixilation of notes and silence; devolving from song into minutiae devoid of real personality or character. While there are a couple of bright moments on Miracles And Magic, in the end it was a difficult listen. Technically brilliant performances just get lost in all of the detail and enhancement; squeezing the intended spirit from the music. This will appeal to a narrow demographic of jazz fans but isn’t likely to find much traction outside of that small group.

Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Socks For Dinosaurs at www.myspace.com/dogsofrebellion. You can purchase a copy of Socks For Dinosaurs at www.cdbaby.com/cd/socksfordinos.