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Uncut Album Of The Month
"One of America's finest songwriters... emotional depths with an opalescent beauty." - Americana UK
Chris Eckman is one of those songwriters with the alchemist's touch.
He's proved it over the years as the songwriter of the Seattle rock-folk band The Walkabouts, as well as across a lauded six album solo career.
His songs have been recorded by Townes Van Zandt, Steve Wynn, Willard Grant Conspiracy (and others), and his last album, the spare, haunted Where the Spirit Rests, won the prestigious German Record Critics Award (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in 2021.
Three and a half years later he's back with The Land We Knew the Best, and new stories to tell.
Yet this isn't just a continuation, it's not the same character.
Time has passed, but maybe more importantly, the geography has altered.
The songs on The Land We Knew the Best aren't populated by the broken people and tumbledown, raw landscapes of the American West that has been the setting for much of his previous work.
He's lived in Ljubljana, Slovenia for many years, and it's seeped into his consciousness.
Not just the city, but also the mountainous and thickly forested nature that surrounds it.
The Land We Knew the Best has its own distinctive landscape. Its own emotional geography.
The change isn't just apparent in the lyrics; it suffuses the music, too.
Where the Spirit Rests was so sparse it stood almost naked.
Here, the sound is fuller, warmer and more textured, creating a very different frame for the songs. This is most evident in the lush, heartbreaking opener, "Genevieve," which features plaintive piano figures and hushed backing vocals from Slovenian singer-songwriter Jana Beltran (who also sings on three other songs) and majestic strings courtesy of Belgian composer /instrumentalist Catherine Graindorge (Iggy Pop, Nick Cave).
It is like a widescreen version of a Raym.......
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