Fire Rec. 
Matthew Bayot : Circling Buzzards (US,2009)***'
I discovered one of the Matthew Bayot’s releases in a music-store sell-out (how many music stores will survive much longer?). When hearing this album I wish I had tried the others too. I have heard comparable songs before in semi-Eastern improvised style, especially in the 60s (John Renbourne, Richard Thompson,..) but this is a whole album full of such songs. The effect is that of the semi-eastern psychedelia, even when sitar is absent. The style leans to indie(/folkrock/bluesy/new Americana/psychrock)-pop but so much into the rhythmic trance and guitar picking the instrumental is always running ahead/faster. On “Sore Dumb” we hear a little beat of also faster running electronic beats to it, with trance effect. At least one track is much more a sitar instrumental with tabla in a rather classical Indian style. Matthew had studied classical Indian music with Ustad Imrat Khan for seven years. A nice well hung together enjoyable debut, but I still wonder where else it could lead to.
