Rating: 8.4 Summary: Like having dinner at your mother's house...nothing new or experimental, but damn if she doesn't make the world's best meatloaf.
For all of those cranks out there that complainin' that they don't make music like they used too...all I can say is you just aren't listening hard enough.
Case in point: Kelley Stoltz's newest album Circular Sounds. As faded, warm, and friendly as an old photo hanging in a mahogany frame, Stoltz's music rummages through the cedar chest of 60's and 70's MopRock and emerges with something vintage, hip, and as long as you don't mind the smell of mothballs, oddly wearable.
As a cobbled together grab bag of chugging Morrisonesque rhythm strumming, Ray Davies' nose-plugged voice, and Get-Back era Beatles experimentation, the album exudes the same pulsing aura as the entire crate of dusted vinyls sitting in your parents garage. If you want a crash course in why that entire era was so alive with potential and buzzing with jittery anticipation, Kelly Stoltz is your man.
And there-in lies the greatest strength and possibly greatest flaw in Stoltz's work. The majority of the thrill in Circular Sounds is playing "guess that influence". I personally enjoy it when a Pink Floyd psych-jam wobbles into the speakers with Mother Nature, or the Bunnymen steeped sound of I Nearly Lost My Mind... but others might get a nagging sense of been-there-done-that.
Not that everything in Circular Sounds is second-hand...a few of the tracks take the lessons learned, absorb the Fab and Funky energy through osmosis, and then unleash something wholly new and exciting...most notably Tintinnabulation, Gardenia, and Your Reverie.
In the end, it doesn't matter if Circular Sounds is redundant or been attempted before...because Stoltz himself doesn't care. He's simply making music he loves, and I pity anyone that can't love it along with him....Besides, if most of the people who heard this type of music when it first came out are old enough now to be losing their hearing, does it matter if this new resurgance sounds similar?
My Trusted MOGs
My Trusted MOGs
pretty bad ass that first track. second one is totally a different vibe...much more jazzy..
definitely wearable...
"As faded, warm, and friendly as an old photo hanging in a mahogany frame, Stoltz's music rummages through the cedar chest of 60's and 70's MopRock and emerges with something vintage, hip, and as long as you don't mind the smell of mothballs, oddly wearable." love it.
tell me more. where are they from? circular sounds is a pretty cool name too if you think about it.
ps you may like the Tall Firs or Alberta Cross. check em out.
My Trusted MOGs
Kelley is from Michigan originally....but I think he's located in San Fran right now. It's funny...not until after i posted did I realize that Circular Sounds is a perfect way of describing his work...the circle of musical life if you will.
Anyway, thanks for the recommendations, i'll definitely check em out.