NYC singer/songwriter and former Grammy winner Jesse Harris is a busy man these days. He recently acted in and wrote the soundtrack to Ethan Hawke's film The Hottest State, the bulk of which were covered by such indie stalwarts as Cat Power, M. Ward, Bright Eyes, Feist, and even Willie Nelson. Now, just in time for the middle of the summer season, Harris releases his seventh solo album, Feel, a collection of easygoing tropical folk pop ditties, some of which hint at or explore other genres.
There are six other musicians who play or sing on the record, but the work is clearly Harris's, as it always has been, even when he started out in 1999 as Jesse Harris and the Ferdinandos. He has since dropped the band from the name and made records as a solo artist, but made a wise decision in holding over bassist Tim Luntzel, whose electric and upright bass playing never outshines Jesse, but adds strong dynamics to his best work.
Though Feel is a long player chock full of slow and midtempo tracks, ironically, it moves along at a fast pace, with more than half of them checking in at under three minutes. The album itself is just under forty minutes long.
The loudest song (for Harris, anyway) comes first, with title track "Feel." It starts out with just a folky acoustic riff, followed by the rest of the band and then a solo done on a distorted electric guitar, which makes the first of its rather infrequent appearances on the record. Not that having minimal electric guitar here is a bad thing. Quite the opposite.
The next song, "I Don't Mind," has a steady, upright bass rhythm, light hand drumming by Andrew Borger - who previously worked with Norah Jones - and is the most peaceful, gorgeous acoustic-based track on the record. And for you guitarists out there, it's played with a capo on the fourth fret.
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
Congrats! This article has been forwarded to the Advance.net websites and Boston.com.