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Elly Roberts reviews
Hometapes
- May 2007
- Rating: 10/10
Knocked together quick sharp (written in three months and recorded in a week), Paul Duncan‘s Above The Trees is an absolute gem.
Relocated to Brooklyn from Texas, Duncan fuses orcherstral-like hints withtender acoustic outings and large dolops of pedal steel making for a smooth,creamy lightness that seems to pull you in from the off with gorgeously melodicopener Red Eagle.
For The Fire, we get hints of Nick Drake, but the quicksilver pedal steel(Ken Champion) tells us its not going to too melancholic. The track opens upwith lashings of strings, with pedal steel reprised almost to the end. Theghosting drum shuffles provide a brilliant back drop for Duncans almost hushedsinging. Ah, return of the, yes you guessed it, pedal steel, for the twangingjangly guitars on the more paced-up The Country Witch, with wonderfulsyncopated drumming by Joe Stickney and string combinations by Fred Longberg-Hornand Nate Swanson, cello and violin respectively.
Parasail,which seems totally out of sync with the previous tracks. Back on the goodfoot, thankfully, a gentle opening to High In The Morning eventuallyburst into life with masses of strings actually its only viola and cello but sounds like a full blown orchestra, which stradle some impressive rockishguitar solos by David Daniell.Above The Trees is a stunning and ghostly instrumental using only twoinstruments pedal steel and B3 keyboard.
Back on more mellow territory, that man Champion playing, well you know by now,glides his mercurial stylings in an almost Hawaiian hue, with Duncans driftingvocals swirling in harmony. The Pendulum has the creamiest sound of all,with multiple textures eventually building up as the song just seems to sailaway in the mist above the trees, juxtaposed by some rather cryptic lyrics.Nevertheless it works perfectly.
A more simplistic opening on Memory Curves, gradually builds to a bitof a blast for the crescendo, complete with edgy trumpet solos by Josh Berman.It leaves us in doubt that Duncan has created a niche all of his own: no-onecan touch him right now.
The glossy gatefold packaging is pretty darned impressive too.
Weblink:home-tapes.com
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Red Eagle
2. The Fire
3. The Lake Pt.2
4. Country Witch
5. Parasail
6. High In The Morning
7. Above The Trees
8. The Lake Pt.1
9. The Pendulum
10. Memory Curves
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.