I get a lot of CDs to review. Many, many CDs.
I mean, really, really a lot of CDs. Piles and piles. Rafts of them. Oodles. Myriads. Hosts.
Did I mention that I get a lot of CDs to review? Well, I do - a lot more than I could possibly give a careful listen to, much less write about. Yet I like to give everything a chance. What to do?
Like many people who work for a living, I have certain tasks that require total concentration, and others whose tedium is ameliorated by background music. So what I often do is throw CDs into my computer while I'm doing the latter kind of work, and see if something jumps out at me in the first couple of songs. If the music can catch my attention at low volume while I'm focused on something else, I figure the disc's worth a careful listen at home later. Usually the test works well.
But it wouldn't have worked for Johnny Irion's new disc, Ex Tempore. This CD is a very subtle set of songs. Fortunately, I'd heard a little about the artist before, through his work with Sarah Lee Guthrie, so I advanced the CD to my serious listening pile even though it hadn't passed the background-music test. The couple of splash moments I'd heard - a Beatles reference here ("Madrid"), a modestly catchy chorus there ("Roman Candle," "Eyes Like a Levee") - hadn't done the trick.
The danger in my method is that I might miss something with a new and original sound that requires close attention in order to "get" what it's about. And what makes Irion's CD special is that it has a new and original sound. Sure, it has influences and recognizable elements: folk-pop, glam rock, blue-eyed soul, Sonny Bono, The Band, and most directly, Neil Young in his wispy-voiced acoustic mode. But taken as a whole, it sounds like nothing else I've heard - a rare and welcome thing.
Irion serves up his topsy-turvy slices of life with grainy, unexpected lyrics and warmly rootsy but slightly off-kilter arrangements. People find their way through life: "I get a good cry every morning/Cuttin' up other people's onions/It's a good way and a good excuse/To let it all out." They philosophize, celebrate, and bemoan: "Casting my net a little wider every day/Somehow the big one always slips away."
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