Ted Brown 2024
Solstice Canyon Loop
Across the ocean and down memory lane: a big-city dweller morphs into country man via a variety of keening melodies.
Our lives consist of transitional periods between bouts of stability, but an artist must avoid contentment because confines of calmness may strangle creative storms, so there’s a little surprise that, during the pandemic, Ted Brown cast his mind back to a time when he traversed the Pacific from Auckland to Los Angeles, as both stretches of the singer’s existence signaled major changes. A fixture of New Zealand’s music scene, the veteran moved to the States in 2002 only to discover the composing and performing style he was accustomed to would easily translate to Americana – and why not if there are very similar, pastoral expanses which lie beyond urban areas? This is whence Ted’s forlorn tunes materialize to grip the listener’s heart and allow Brown to guide the audience’s through depression of present day.
And this is why his first album since 2013 has to get started by “Stops” where Ted’s harmonica and voice elegantly ride a robust six-string twang that’s laced with steel guitars – the pedal and lap are especially bittersweet on “Better At That” which finds Brown punching and patching the holes in his psyche – to map the songwriter’s journey towards a brighter future. No wonder wide-eyed optimism and orchestral uplift drive the organ-bolstered “Mr O’Neil” to a quiet triumph and pour cosmic rapture into the number’s refrain before the acoustically sculpted “Dark Side Of Memory Lane” adds honeyed, piano-sprinkled solemnity to the platter’s heady mélange of light and dark recollections, and “Come Back” unfolds into a deeply soulful ballad demonstrating the whole spectrum of the vocalist’s pipes. And though “Little Running” offers a warm, tremulous vibe, “Sugar And Daylight” speeds things up in a bluegrass way, leaving the almost baroque, romantic finale of “Lauraly” to evoke Appalachian spirituality.
As a result, a locale-pinpointing album turns out to be universally relatable, and that’s no mean feat in the global-village age.
****1/3
