Review: Tiny Little Blackouts - Idea Of Alice

Tiny Little Blackouts - Idea Of Alice
2009, Robot123 Records

San Francisco's Tiny Little Blackouts slip through the cracks of your mind with a low-key style reminiscent of Mazzy Star or The Cowboy Junkies. Vocalist/guitarist Cameron Ember has only been playing guitar for a couple of years, but shows an ability to craft songs of significant emotional and intellectual weight with melodies that compel. Tiny Little Blackouts just formed in 2009, and have already released their debut album, Idea Of Alice.

Idea Of Alice opens with the laid-back Lamb44; a somewhat dissociative yet compelling song. Ember has a lovely voice; lyric with enough mature alto in the sound to lend it some weight. Wrecking Ball maintains the imperturbable countenance of Tiny Little Blackouts, dashed with healthy doses of angst and need. The arrangement is full of sound but unimaginative. Cherry Blossom is obtuse and difficult to follow. The energy here is a tough sell as well. Ditto Angry Santa, which relies on strong arrangement and a pleasant vocal line from Ember, but the two mix with less-than-exciting results.

Lamb68 takes a slightly different sonic path than the opening track, although the essential melody and effects don't change. The song is nice enough, but substantially similar to the original version that opens the album. You're Too Nice plods as it cajoles, bringing minds together if not hearts. Tiny Little Blackouts close with Winter In Our Hearts, Cameron Ember's best vocal performance on the album. The lyrics are full of imagery that runs toward the indecipherable.

Cameron Ember has a pleasant voice and Tiny Little Blackouts are about as tight as they come instrumentally. Working together to blend their styles and sounds has come a long way, but it’s still a work in progress. Tiny Little Blackouts are an intriguing band with a lot of possibilities. The low-key musical approach can work, but the energy within the songs can't be low key. Give Tiny Little Blackouts a try!

Rating: 3 Songs (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Tiny Little Blackouts at www.myspace.com/tinylittleblackouts or http://www.tinylittleblackouts.com/. You can purchase Idea Of Alice as either a CD or Download from CDBaby.com.

Review: The Fools - Lost And Found

The Fools - Lost And Found
2009, The Fools

The Fools began their life together as soccer teammates at Rutgers University. Cleveland, Ohio's Jen Tobin (vox/guitar) and Tacoma, Washington's Uchenna Bright (bass) have a unique sound in the neighborhood of Tracy Chapman singing lead with Mazzy Star; mellow dramatics set to gentle acoustic/folk arrangements fill your ears with comforting sounds on The Fools' debut album, Lost And Found, release in June of 2009.

Lost And Found opens with Lullaby, beginning in the mellow tones of Mazzy Star or The Cowboy Junkies, but quickly adding an urgency that belies the gentle nature suggest by the song title. The Great Whale and Cosmic Love both falter under a lethargic feel. A Good Day finds The Fools raising the ante a bit with an upbeat hand-clapper you'll get into. For My Mother is a deeply introspective and warm tune that suffers from the extreme low-end approach to Lost And Found, but till somehow works in its own right. Part of the charm of The Fools is their low-key delivery, but it also becomes something of a curse. Between the melancholy performance style and the low-energy interpretations, The Fools run the risk of boring some listeners. Songs such as Even Fools Know, Folly and Lonely Days are more than just words and notes thrown together, but the homogeneous nature of the songs on Lost And Found will ultimately lead many listeners to give up on The Fools before they get through the whole album. If you check out The Well or The Song We Sang, consecutive tracks on the album, you may be hard pressed as first listen to tell them apart.

The Fools simply play it too safe to succeed on Lost And Found. Fair poetry is blended with strong musicianship and a pseudo-depressive affect to fuel The Fools' sound on Lost And Found. There is some good stuff here, but you might have to dig through the chaff to get there.

Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about The Fools at www.myspace.com/thefools_lostandfound, where you can purchase a copy of Lost And Found.

Review: The Blue Seeds - The Blue Seeds

The Blue Seeds - The Blue Seeds
2008, L-Abe

Montreal’s The Blue Seeds are led by the eclectic and mystifying voice of Amelie Laflamme who brings to life the songs of songwriter Francois Dufault. The ensemble has a highly unique and catchy sound that can be found on their debut album, The Blue Seeds. Originally released in 2008 in Canada, The Blue Seeds saw an October, 2009 release in the U.S.

The Blue Seeds open with the slinky Barcelona, a song full of longing and desire. Vocalist Amelie Laflamme has an eclectic sound that's something of a cross between Norah Jones and Hope Sandoval, and Dufault's guitar work helps to create a desperate, lost feeling that fuels the song. Outside The Rain Falls has an almost Country feel to it, played in dark minor keys. Laflamme is entrancing, filling out the sound with a voice that wiggles its way inside your brain and sets up camp for a long stay. The dark Country/Americana feel sticks around for Lost Highway, another dark and vaguely disturbing musical landscape fueled by repressed surf guitar. A Killing In Art sounds like a Mazzy Star outtake, both instrumentally and vocally.

On Lost And Delirious, Laflamme gives up her best vocal performance on the album. The song is languorous and is stretched a bit thin here but is otherwise very well done. My Fair Weather Friend takes on a gentle Blues/Rock feel, blended with the nearly ambient vocals The Blue Seeds seem comfortable with. It's a pleasant listen but doesn't really stand out. The same can be said for Black Birds, a song filled with mournful country guitar accents that get a little bogged down in its own pacing. The Blue Seeds say goodnight with the distant and disaffected I Dreamed A Little Dream, a song of emotional division and separation disguised as a hopeful tune.

The Blue Seeds have a distinctive sound that's somewhere between Mazzy Star and The Cowboy Junkies. When everything clicks The Blue Seeds sound glorious in their melancholy, but the energy level flattens out at times and the pacing of the album will lose some listeners. Laflamme has a distinctive voice that is instantly recognizable once you've heard it, and the musicianship is decidedly above average. Take The Blue Seeds for a spin and see how they fit you.

Rating: 3 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about The Blue Seeds at http://www.theblueseeds.com/ or www.myspace.com/theblueseeds. You can purchase a copy of The Blue Seeds as either a CD or Download from CDBaby.com.

Review: Pearse McGloughlin - Busy Whisper

Pearse McGloughlin - Busy Whisper
2009, Urchin Records

Sligo, Ireland native Pearse McGloughlin has travelled all over. He’s lived in France, Montreal and London before returning to Dublin. Along the way he basked in the various musical cultures he was exposed to. McGloughlin has played in a series of bands over the years, but steps to the fore with his debut solo album, Busy Whisper. Part Mazzy Star and part Grand Salvo, McGloughlin creates music with the essence and feel of a dream you’ve just woken from and is already starting to slip from the fingers of memory.

Busy Whisper is an album full of pitfalls with rewards strewn about; McGloughlin tends to get lost in his own ideas as often as not, but the moments of clarity are well worth the wait. Pearse McGloughlin has a very mellow sound and low key songs. Songs like Partings, Ways To Kill A Werewolf and Haunting Room play the two-sided mellow sound with good energy and McGloughlin sounds like a genius. His smooth tenor voice fits in with all of this quite well. Unfortunately, many of the songs on Busy Whisper either lack the energy he's capable of putting into a song or get tripped up in awkward lyrical turns or repetition. Ways To Kill A Werewolf is very well written; the story of a lycanthrope with moral misgivings brought on by something like love. The arrangement is strong and the story is golden. Haunting Room is in the same class; an out-of-the-box love ballad that goes dark places with glorious sound. On Long Day, McGloughlin tries to close strong with a seductively pretty melody, but the song grounds out on a low energy performance.

Busy Whisper shows Pearse McGloughlin as an artist so devoted to a particular sound that he loses his own performing sense in it. This may play out differently on-stage, but on CD the music is lifeless at times. On the songs where McGloughlin is fully engaged things work wonderfully well. Unfortunately, these are the exception rather than the rule on Busy Whisper.

Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Pearse McGloughlin at www.myspace.com/walkperson or http://www.walkperson.net/. You can buy a copy of Busy Whisper at RoadRecs.com.

Review: Jason Yates – Jason Yates

Jason Yates – Jason Yates
2009, Vapor Records
Jason Yates is one of the most respected Hammond B3 players in the business, having played with folks such as Mazzy Star (Fade Into You); Natalie Merchant (Tigerlilly Tour), the 2 PC and Macy Gray. His keyboard skills are undeniable, yet it's always interesting to see how a top-notch instrumentalist transitions to the front-man role either of a band or as a solo singer/songwriter. Yates made that jump with Angeleno, and returns on October 6, 2009 with his self-titled disc, Jason Yates.

Jason Yates opens with My Way Out, a piano-driven rocker that harkens back to an older sound; part Rod Stewart and part Elton John with a bit of Ben Folds added in for seasoning is an apt description of the sound here. You won't be able to resist the desire to pop and sway. Nobody So Far continues in a similar vein, embracing a 1970's singer/songwriter aesthetic with a melancholy (think Wallflowers) look at failed expectations. Yates has an everyman quality to his vocals that puts the listener immediately at ease, and the gentle arrangement is the perfect fit. Paper Tents finds Yates engaging in a comfortable bit of Americana with ties back into the late-1960's, early 1970's Folk/Rock scene. It's a pleasant listen.

I Run is a somnolent little tune with a melancholy air and a decent melody. Written either from the depths of depression or the bounds of sleep, I Run flows slowly like a mountain. To Chance has the same sort of classic sway to it heard on My Way Out. It's a song of regret about a relationship that didn't end up where Yates might have hoped. The arrangement is solid has an instantly likeable quality to it. Expect this to be a concert favorite. Sing For You closes out Jason Yates on a familiar sleepy note; a love song for the lovelorn and weary.

The tempo and affect on Jason Yates was a bit much for my taste in the end. As slow and relentless as a river, Yates pours out the waterlogged contents of his heart in songs that rarely vary in approach, sound or style. What's charming at two or three songs becomes wearisome well before the ninth and final song concludes the cycle. Jason Yates might be the theoretical love child of Leonard Cohen and Hope Sandoval, or perhaps he's just a guy who writes sad songs; either way he'll find fans, but you really have to be in the right frame of mind for this one.

Rating: 2.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Jason Yates at www.myspace.com/jasonyatesofficial. Jason Yates will be released on October 6, 2009; you can pre-order a copy through Amazon.com.

Review: Speck Mountain - Some Sweet Relief

Speck Mountain – Some Sweet Relief
2009, Carrot Top Records

Mellow spunk is the word I would choose for Marie-Claire Balabanian, lead vocalist of Chicago-based ethereal rockers Speck Mountain. Traversing the mellow vocal styles of Margo Timmons and Hope Sandoval, Balabanian paints each song with a sweet and sincere vocal brush burgeoning with anima and attitude. Add in the spacey jangle of Karl Briedrick’s guitar and the mournful wash of Kate Walsh’s keyboards and you have the recipe for a glorious work of downtrodden pop magic. Speck Mountain’s latest release, due March 17, 2009 is Some Sweet Relief; it brings new life and vibrancy to the world of moody, introspective pop music.

Shame On The Soul opens the album on the spindly legs of Briedrick’s plaintive guitar while Balabanian comes in over the top sounding like a cross between Timmons and Stevie Nicks. Balabanian and Briedrick are co-story tellers here, with Briedrick handling the unspoken or unspeakable on his guitar. You’ll understand once you hear it. The song is stunning in its simplicity and stark beauty. I Feel Eternal is one of the more optimistic sounding songs on the CD; the hopeful guitar lead soaring through a gentle reverb that suggests a dreamlike quality. Balabanian meets this with a pragmatic and sonically gorgeous vocal performance that may be the best on the CD. Some Sweet Relief has a very repressed blues feel to it that is buried deep in an Americana/Folk arrangement.

Dreamlike qualities abound on Backslider, built on the laconic keyboard of Walsh and ethereal, wordless vocals. This serves as an introduction to Backsliding, a striking piece of sad beauty. Balabanian is the queen of all she surveys here, and rings every bit of pernicious melancholy from the song she can manage; Other highlights include Twinlines and Sister Water.

Speck Mountain is an immensely talented group of musicians pursuing a sound that has to be done near perfectly in order to succeed. The sort of melancholy, ethereal pop music created by Balabanian, Briedrick, Walsh, et. al. can die a slow death for many reasons, but Speck Mountain make you want to travel the back roads of sullen, downtrodden pop with them. Some Sweet Relief is pop alchemy at its finest, creating golden moments for your listening pleasure. Expect Speck Mountain to be with us for some time to come.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Speck Mountain at www.myspace.com/speckmountain. Some Sweet Relief is due out March 17, 2009. Keep checking Speck Mountain’s MySpace page for availability information. Also note that keyboardist Kate Walsh has departed the band since the recording of Some Sweet Relief, and so there is a new keyboardist, Claire “Cub” Haley, as well as a new drummer, Christopher Dye.

Review: Nikki Kelly - Nikki Kelly

Nikki Kelly – Nikki Kelly
2008, Nikki Kelly

Nikki Kelly is a singer/songwriter and filmmaker based in Albuquerque, New Mexico; one of those artists whose creative urge can’t be satisfied by just one outlet. With a reputation for being silly or strange (self-professed), Kelly writes intriguing and witty folk/pop songs. The child of two music lovers (her father was a blues musician), she has some similarities to Canada’s Sarah Slean, although not quite so solidly ensconced in European musical themes. Her debut CD, Nikki Kelly, displays influences ranging from Tom Waits to Mazzy Star and even Feist, but in the end it’s all Nikki Kelly, unvarnished and unrestrained.

Nikki Kelly is something of an acquired taste, I believe. She has some great moments on her debut CD, Nikki Kelly, but also some moments that may leave listeners scratching their heads. Kelly starts off on a great note with the song Franklin, where she seems to be singing to a baby and trying to get inside the baby’s perspective of all that’s going on around him. The song is cute and fun and warm. Do Do Do is a sweet little love song. It comes across as young but amiable. Nikki Kelly has quite a sense of humor, it would seem. It infuses and illuminates her songs like a nightlight, casting as many shadows as light. Apt. 10 has an ironic sense as Kelly sings about singing someone else’s song to the tune of 4-Non Blondes’ What’s Going On.

How Do You Say is one of the highlights of the album, although not for the faint of heart of ear. It’s funny, angry and brazen all at once, and one of the best ways I’ve heard to learn how to swear in Italian. This song has a definite Tom Waits vibe to it. Bored is mildly humorous – the sort of thing you might have expected at a Jewel show early in her career. It leads into Dark Country, which is probably the best pure songwriting on the album. Starkly honest and vulnerable, Kelly brings out a sonic beauty in this one.

Many of the songs on Nikki Kelly are less than two minutes; ideas turned into jingles and songs on a moment’s notice, perhaps. Nikki Kelly suffers for these bits of musical flotsam. There is real songwriting talent here, and Kelly certainly draws on it, but Kelly is still fascinated with being cute and funny. Fans of Meryn Cadell and early Barenaked Ladies will get a kick out of Nikki Kelly, but the contrast of paths is an important one to pay attention to. One became irrelevant and the other is still substantially around. Which path will Nikki Kelly choose?

Rating: 2.5 Stars (Out of 5)

You can learn more about Nikki Kelly at www.myspace.com/nikkikellymusic. You can purchase a copy of Nikki Kelly at www.cdbaby.com/nikkikelly.