New Music...Monday 5 - Greg Laswell

Up this week is solo artist Greg Laswell. I first got interested in Laswell back in 2006 when I heard a song off his Through Toledo album. As far as I know, he's released two LPs and two EPs since then. While I can't decide which of the five recordings I like best, I'm featuring his latest album Take a Bow, released May 4, 2010. 

Popmatters.com reports:

"Songwriter and producer Greg Laswell secluded himself in a rural cabin just south of Flagstaff, Arizona to create his fourth record, Take a Bow. Playing all instruments and performing most of the studio duties himself, this is easily Laswell’s most controlled, and yet exploratory, release to date. The crushing emotions of heartache remain as his primary inspiration, but this latest collection of songs is far from a hermetic journey into melancholia.They are instead weighted with the insight and optimism afforded by acceptance, moving on, and recollection." 

I guess I'm not ready for a career in album reviewing, because I don't think I would ever write that his material is inspired by "crushing emotions of heartache" and I had to look up the word "hermetic". But then again, I'm not known to pay much attention to lyrics.

So, while I'm certain Greg Laswell is singing very poignant words, I'm really drawn to his eerie melodies, harmonies and use of the recording studio. Some surprise, huh? Seriously though, this guy is a master of studio vocal techniques. His recorded voice sounds like butter. And the layering of the many vocal lines along with the instruments make his albums interesting to me after countless plays. As you'll see below, my headphone rating is high for this album; not so much because there are Floydian stereo pans flying left to right, but due to the details buried in the recordings. 

Knowing that Laswell plays all the instruments, does the recording himself, and produces the final tracks, it's kind of mind blowing to me. This guy has some real talent. Jess and I saw him play at Berbati's Pan (a small Portland club) a couple years back. The show was not incredible, but I didn't care, as I wasn't expecting a 'Bono' level of stage presence. 

On Take a Bow, my favorite songs are probably Track 5 - Around the Bend, a song I saw reviewed today as "bland adult-oriented rock with a slightly-more-masculine-than-Coldplay feel". Yes, it sounds like Coldplay, but I do like Coldplay and at age 41, I am an adult. So there. My other favorite is Track 10 - Off I Go, another soft-then-loud pop-rock song.  

 

My Rating__7 out of 10         Headphones__ 9 out of 10