Fatcat Rec.
The Balky Music : The Length Of The Rail (UK/AUS,2009)****
Sam Jones played in numerous bands, like Movietone and Crescent (with his brother Matt), Flying Saucer Attack, Minotaur Shock, and Third Eye Foundation. After some hand swapped private cdr pressings this is his first real solo release, with occasional help of Francois Marry, George McKenzie, Naoto Kawate and Peter Emptage. It is a well produced album with the richness of a professionally cosy home recorded laptop folk release, with songs that are either catchy (“Jisaboke”'s last part reminded me of one the most famous Kinks songs, "Waterloo Sunset"), but at times also a bit surreal,in between David Thomas/ Mayo Thompson with an odd, rather funny vision on things and situations, a vision from taking a distance as if being homeless while being home, an outsider’s inspiration outside the situation where he participated while his thoughts about it are still vivid. Or it is as if one experienced the gathering of a herd of cows with cowbells on, being translated as a vision for people in a bar with rhythms on plastic cups and a song and pre-recorded acoustic guitar. The melodies are attractive and so is the complexity of rhythms. There have been some experiments with old time electronica (Arp, Casio, analogue drum machine) which are used as playful and colourful swinging like toys as his visions and songs. Each song is like a “good morning, better it can’t be”. Gets better with each listen.
