- 歌曲
- 时长
简介
It's hard to imagine two more different-sounding singer-songwriters than Dave Carroll and Andy Morton: Dave with his light, expressive vocal style and stylish guitar playing, Andy with his deeply poetic ballads and resonant delivery. But one thing they have in common is a shared love of well-written, original songs where genre boundaries are transcended, played with, and sometimes completely ignored. With these broad objectives in mind, Andy and Dave got together in 2012, to resume a collaboration begun in the early seventies, forming a new, acoustic-based band, The Details, as a showcase for their combined talents. They teamed up with Birmingham bassist Bob Boucher( a lot of B's there!) and drummer Colin Edmonds to rehearse, perform and eventually record the breathtakingly varied song selection which makes up their first album called, modestly, The Details. The album is a Tour de Force. Beautifully recorded by Bob and Toby Wilson at Arc Studio, it simply defies categorisation. The opening track, Sixty Watt Pearl, sets a tone of tongue-in-cheek acoustic rock in an updated version of Dave's 1980's 'hit' single, a song by 'The System' which reached number soixante-neuf in the French charts! Dave's humorous lyric-writing is well featured on the album, witness the mock-despair of Big Boy's Blues; a song called Nothing - neo-nihilism, Country-style and Grim Reaper, little less than a celebration of the preposterous with apologies to Beethoven. But Dave has his lyrical side too: the unashamedly romantic Ever So Easy reveals his talent for exquisitely fashioned melody and engaging words. Dave acknowledges the influence of George Harrison here. The surrealistic Feather In The Dust dates from the seventies and has been described by Andy as 'one of Dave's classic songs'. The instrumental treatment, featuring Natalie Mason's delicate viola lines is hauntingly classical, with a suggestion of the Baroque. Rock influences come to the fore in Girl On A Bicycle, an inspiring song with a soaring instrumental break, while Moon Blues, co-written with Andy explores the fusing of abstract imagery with Delta Blues style. Andy Morton's folk influences go back to the sixties, indeed African Cargoes is a fulsome tribute to that icon of the decade, Burt Jansch. Musically, the song draws attention to African influences which, combined with the better known modal and Celtic elements actually formed the basis of Jansch's ground-breaking style. Dave's guitar playing illustrates this with Malian-style discords and cross-rhythms whilst cleverly establishing a relationship with Burt's most famous tune, Angie. The theme of English folk music and its nostagic associations is picked up again in Banners of Albion where the arch-enemies Reynardine and Lord Franklin join forces to defend their dying heritage. Andy's vivid tone- painting is beautifully illustrated in Winter, a song in which a chilling image and impressionistic chords combine to strike a mood of deep melancholy. Gorgoeus viola here too. Another bleak but irresistible landscape is featured in Waiting For Rain, classic in its simple power. But Andy can be humourous too: A Natural High takes a light hearted look at substance utilisation and how its aberrant effects can be indistiguishable from l-u-r-v-e. The Girl With The Radio embodies Andy's long-standing fascination with Bossa Nova and the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim - here the imagery is wistful and nostalgic with a swaying rhythm and a fab jazzy solo from Dave. There are 14 songs on this album, sequenced with a view to contrast of mood and key whilst maintaining continuity. The numbers are thoughtfully combined with interesting joins designed to reward consecutive listening. There are also 'sections' where one or other writer predominates, creating vivid 'thumbnail sketches' of Andy and Dave's very different styles whilst highlighting how they complement one another. We've had a lot of fun putting this album together-hope you like it.