singer/s/sw reviews : Dusty Stray

Basta Rec. Dusty Stray : Tales of Misfortune and Woe (NL/US,2009)****

What caught my attention immediately and during the listening kept some admiration alive was the nicely printed glossy booklet with old lithographic prints (imitating colour photographs which were not possible at the time), mostly with images of similar looking standing alone rocks that tickle the imagination. With an a illustrated story boo, this is not fairy tales reality for children, but some darker tales and darker sides of human nature, in the tradition of murder ballads, dramatic tales of misfortune and woe, which also are related to death most often. Often with a new Americana touch, most often more independent than that, with backing female singer, accompanied by acoustic pickings, and arrangements of tum tum old time bass, banjo and electric guitar and occasional other instruments. I very much like the Chinese instrument introducing “Wendy and the creature” with some surreal dramatic effect. The great “Winter’s day” song was used on Autumn Ferment’s latest season’s single brought more attention to Jonathan’s Brown’s full release. It is easy to visualise the song settings and the adultery drama behind them. Some of it even with a distance from the story really becomes real and emotionally tragic, whilst the songs themselves with more happy distance have no interference with this kind of dramatic reality of the darker sides of a human mind including the drama of someone’s indifference which causes tragedy, and some of the inevitability leading to its stories. Jonathan’s voice is that of a real story teller and can change to rather lower registers when identifying himself with some of the darker characters. Entertaining!

Audio : "Brother","Sad Song","Little Birdie","When I scared you"

Homepage : http://www.dustystray.com/

Label info : http://www.basta.nl/productDetails.aspx?IDProduct=198&ArtistName=Dusty+Stray

Autumn Ferment Rec. "Seasonal Sevens : Winter" Dusty Stray / Flake Brown (NL/UK,2010)*****

I never expected such a “happy” sounding ironically uplifting Winter’s song, but at the same time Dusty Stray’s song is truly very sinister. It sounds like a good old western story, an Americana ballad, with acoustic guitar, banjo, slide guitar and hump hump bass, led by male voice but with some dual vocals (female second vocalist). It is about someone freezing in the woods and being eaten by various animals. This track comes from his “Tales of Misfortune and Woe” album, which was released in Holland last may 2009. Dusty Stray is Jonathan Brown, a Taiwan born American resident who now lives in Holland. He is accompanied by Marjolein van der Klauw en Jac Bico (Powderblue) and Gert-Jan Blom (Beau Hunks).

A different approach and with a different humour, is the poetic words play and singing entertainment, with wonderful fingerpickings and minstrel qualities by Flake Brown. Snow turns to flowers and to gold with a heart full of love. A wonderful choice from the still too unknown talent of Flake Brown (Tony Ramsay). This comes from his fine album from 2008, “Help the overdog”.

Again, a highly recommended choice. Limited to 300 copies on white vinyl, so be quick.

Audio : Dusty Stray : “Winter’s Day”

Info & audio : http://www.myspace.com/dustystray & on http://www.myspace.com/flakebrown & http://www.myspace.com/autumnfermentrecords

Label info : http://www.autumnfermentrecords.com/page15.htm

Review and audio : http://www.piccadillyrecords.com/...

Other reviews : http://www.normanrecords.com/records/114253 & http://www.heathenharvest.com/...

& http://commonfolkmeadow.wordpress.com/...

Review of full Flake Brown CD see next page->

Basta Rec. Dusty Stray : Light Years Away (NL,2011)***

Where the first album’s dark and sinister side into a story book in all its aspects gave it a sort of mysterious attraction, the story context now becoming more real and realistic, part of real life, to a degree it also becomes more common, easier, simple and Americana styled, where the stories, rhythms and song lines become more that out of the ordinary, lighter, mixed with too much indifference or being too attached to I don’t know how much these stories still count further in life. There’s some good picking, strumming, nice female backing vocals, Americana slide guitar and a few other instruments with a few good percussional ideas of arrangements. The album was produced by Ken Stringfellow.

Further on I got this info about the line-up : Songwriter “Jonathan Brown, Ken Stringfellow and JB Meijers played the majority of the various instruments, from guitar to guitaret and from piano to omnichord. And in addition to playing, there was a lot of stomping going on (with and without shoes for various effects), banging on the backs of pianos and getting the most out of vintage microphones and analog effects. Guest performers on Light Years Away are Gert-Jan Blom (Beau Hunks), Rene van Barneveld (Urban Dance Squad) and Pim Kops (Solomon Burke, De Dijk). Singer-songwriter Jesje de Schepper lends her voice as well.”

Audio : http://soundcloud.com/basta-music/sets/light-years-away-dusty-stray/

Dutch reviews : http://www.adelinevanlier.nl/programma/gaten-dusty-stray/

& http://www.podiuminfo.nl/recensie/4951/Light_Years_Away/Dusty_Stray/

Label entry : http://www.bastamusic.com/productDetails.aspx?idproduct=219

Intro : http://upcloseandacoustic.podomatic.com/entry/2011-11-24T07_56_55-08_00

& http://www.musicsense.org/album526656-dusty-stray.htm

& http://www.reverbnation.com/dustystray

Band info : http://www.last.fm/music/Dusty+Stray