- Shelby Lynne - Revelation Road (Everso Records)
Rating: 8 (out of 10)
Having gone through the corporate centres of Nashville and L.A. making music according to other's specifications, Shelby Lynne knows a thing or two about the business side.
She's dressed up like Dusty Springfield, sung a wagonload of cover tunes and sweetened the sound way more than she probably wanted to. Album titles such as Identity Crisis and Suit Yourself suggest what her state of mind was like at the time. The records were uniformly excellent but it may not have been that much fun to work on those sessions.
Lynne doesn't have that problem anymore. Based in the California desert oasis of Palm Springs she's now chief cook and bottle washer of her own independent record company and making music her way.
Revelation Road is raw roots music up close and personal. Lynne has removed all distractions from the process with the intimate production picking up the snap of the acoustic guitar strings and every nuance in her voice.
The wonderful "Woebegone" has a full band behind her but the rest of the material relies mainly on voice and guitar. Each track has its own storyline with the bare bones production focusing on the essence of the songs informed by country and southern R&B.
For the first time in her music the singer/songwriter (born Shelby Lynne Moorer) addresses a tragic event that occurred when she was 17. In 1986 her father shot and killed her mother and
then himself in front of her and her younger sister Allison Moorer. The song "Heaven's Only Days Down the Road," written in the voice of her father, appears near the end of Revelation Road followed by the coda "I Won't Leave You" sung in hushed tones like a lullaby.
Lynne performs tonight in Vancouver at the Rio Theatre. Tickets are $25 and available at Red Cat, Highlife Records or online at www.ticketweb.ca/.
- John Goodman
- M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (Mute Records) Rating: 8 (out of 10)
French electronic musician Anthony Gonzalez moved his M83 project to L.A. after his last recording and immediately set about making his sound bigger than ever.
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, is the result. Gonzalez throws everything he's got into the mix. Like his debut, Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, the new two-disc, 22-song set continues to push music into new places with a sense of adventure and great energy.
M83 plays Venue in Vancouver on Nov.12.
- John Goodman
