CD available from Laughing Outlaw Records
A twinch* of Tom Petty makes my stomach gurgulate** as the opening notes air out.
"Nowhere Now Here" is the debut offering from Karl Brodie, a dead ringer, it would appear, for The 70s Show's, Hyde. It was released in America earlier this month. Somewhere in all the quiet dramatics is a milepost voice in the great singer-songwriter tradition. The first clue comes when reading the song lyrics becomes a reading of poetry.
Don't know if I was awake or dreamin
I knew there was something about the way I was feelin
When i closed my eyes and she came to me in the night
She said it's my call to pass away
This little birds got to fly away
I've seen my time
Now the bright light's shinin
All the things I did not say
All my words that got away
The CD is calm and slow and offers a temporal detachment from the outside world. Before I knew what was about me, I was into song three and hadn't noticed the song breaks.
"Ride Out Alone" is the first track where hard steel-string fingering rises it's head and makes you stare it down. The title track offers a country swing; a little more up-tempo. And the five-minute song should have been a tipping point to an exploration of subtle musical styles. It should have cranked up the power and the verve.
It wasn't meant to be.
Jami and Shamani are noted in the album's dedication. They "gave me so much and were gone too soon." Who they are isn't detailed, though Jami is mentioned in "See You When I Get There." A similar sense of melancholy pervades the entire musical landscape of Nowhere ...
After the roll and almost-jig of the title song "Paperback Book" drops the plot back into the slow and steady groove that lopes on through the next two songs until "Stranded" brings a boot-dropping country stride through batwing doors.
(And no one will believe me but I didn't read the lyrics until long after I'd written this entire review. The first line is "Stepped through the swingin doors.)
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