Tag: Randy Newman

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Although the rising Sacramento-based trio Best Move — Kris Anaya, Joseph Davancens and Fernando Olivia — formed in 2019, the band can trace some of its origins over the better part of the past decade: the band’s primary songwriters Anaya and Davancens have played a variety of different music under various banners.

Early on, Kris Anaya developed a reputation for his penchant for crafting wry, offbeat, guitar-based folk, and for following his muse down whatever sonic path it might take him. Davancens earned graduate degrees in avant garde composition and jazz double bass. Interestingly, Best Move was born from Anaya and Davancens’ desire to return to their natural inclinations for organic instrumentation and earnest songwriting, with the project drawing from the work of Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson and Harry Nilsson and film and TV scores — in particular, the films of Michel Gondry, Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson. The end result is a sound that Anaya calls a “thank you to the past” while being decidedly modern.

Clocking in at a little over 4.30, the slow-burning “Forgotten Bloom,” Best Move’s debut single possesses a quirky, cinematic soundtrack vibe while drawing from 60s and 70s AM Radio rock, thanks to a lush arrangement of strummed guitar, twinkling Rhodes, atmospheric synths, shimmering bursts of pedal steel, a steady backbeat and razor sharp hooks. While sonically bearing a subtle resemblance to Young Narrator in the Breakers-era Pavo Pavo, “Forgotten Bloom” manages to be carefully sculpted yet rooted in wry yet lived-in lyricism and songwriting.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Raymond James Mason is a Long Island, NY-born, Brooklyn-born trombonist and singer/songwriter. As the story goes, Mason picked up the trombone at a very young age, and as a teenager, he studied classical performance and jazz studies at my alma mater NYU, where he studied with Brian Lynch, Lenny Pickett, Alan Ferber and Elliot Mason. Upon graduating, Mason quickly became an in-demand musician, playing across a wide variety of genres; but he’s best known for being a member of renowned local Afrobeat act Antibalas, which eventually led to him becoming a member of the Daptone Records/Dunham Records in-house band, playing with the likes of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Charles Bradley and the Menahan Street Band, Lee Fields and the The Expressions and many others. Additionally, Mason has performed and or recorded with the likes of Alicia Keys, David Byrne, Randy Newman, Erykah Badu, The Roots, Arcade Fire, Ed Sheeran, Janelle Monae, Lukas Graham, Nile Rodgers, Tame Impala, Maren Morris, Earth Wind and Fire, Mark Ronson and and more. Unsurprisingly, he very busy Mason learned from these artists while honing his own compositional and vocal skills, patiently waiting for his moment to step out in the spotlight.

Back in October 2016, Mason reached out to Daptone Records house band member, longtime friend and Dala Records founder Billy Aukstik to set up at a casual recording session. At the time, Aukstik was recording out of an old East Village brownstone basement, equipped with only a Tascam 388 8-track tape recorder and a few old ribbon microphones. Aukstik and Mason assembled an all-star squad of local soul musicians, including Alex Chakour, who has played with Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones; Freddy DeBoe, who has played with Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones; Joe Harrison, who has played with Nick Hakim and Charles Bradley; and Morgan Price, who has played with Antibalas to record a couple of Mason’s compositions — two of which wound up becoming the A and B sides of Mason’s solo debut, “Back When”/”No Clue.”

A side single “Back When” is a strutting and swaggering bit of a soul pop centered around an arrangement of Arp Omni bass synth, fuzzy guitar lines and a steady backbeat — and while thematically the song is a universal tale of lost opportunity and what could have beens, it’s a decidedly contemporary take on the Dala Records sound, as it nods at contemporary soul, hip-hop and psych pop in a way that brings Tame Impala, Nick Hakim and others to mind. “No Clue,” the B side single is centered around fuzzy power chords and a garage rock vibe, while thematically the song focuses on a dysfunctional and confusing relationship. Both singles reveal an an up-and-coming artist, who’s actively and earnestly pushing the sonic boundaries of soul.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Renowned British-born Singer/Songwriter Miten’s Elegantly Simple Cover of a Beloved Beatles Tune

Miten’s recently released Temple At Midnight is his first solo English language work in over a decade and in many ways the album finds him returning to his musical roots while writing deeply personal material inspired and influenced by his own journey to renewal, faith and love. And interestingly, the album’s latest single is an elegantly simple cover of The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” in which Miten’s soulful and wizened vocals are paired with a sparse arrangement that has Miten accompanying himself with guitar, a bit of piano here and there, a mournful string arrangement and some backing vocals from his partner and collaborator Deva Premal. And while radiating a quiet assuredness and tranquility, Miten’s cover also possesses the same wistfulness of the original.

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Humanistic Video for Drunken Prayer’s “Hand of God”

If you’ve been frequenting JOVM over the past couple of years, you may recall that I’ve written quite a bit about Morgan Christopher Geer, who performs both solo and with a band as Drunken Prayer. […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Album Review: Drunken Prayer’s Into the Missionfield

Drunken Prayer Into the Missionfield Fluff and Gravy Records Release Date: February 7, 2012   Track Listing Brazil Ain’t No Grave Always Sad Maryjane Take a Walk I Saw It With My Own Two Eyes […]