(photograph by Wayne Sides)Liminal Blue (2008) - Jake Berry - Songs from the periphery, the dark corners, waking dreams, and visionary revels. Ranging from soulful ballads to laments to chamber folk. What at first sounds like a conundrum of scattered lines and musical styles becomes in a little over half an hour a mirror of the fragmented, isolated state of the human soul at the outset of the new century. This is a document of the contemporary landscape as seen from the inside. As with all Berry's albums this one was recorded in a back room in his home he calls 9th Street Laboratories. The first Front Porch recording to be released as an online digital album as well as a CD. Available at: Amazon.com, eMusic, iTunes, Rhapsody and Shockhound.
Jack Random's review at Amazon.com:
The first word that comes to mind in describing Jake Berry's Liminal Blue is Haunting. The second is Illusive. Jake Berry is a poet. He chooses words with care and sensitivity. The word Blue is obvious and inevitable. The mood is melancholy like the burning sunset of a toxic sky. The key word is Liminal and readers will be forgiven if they have to reference its meaning: belonging to the point of conscious awareness below which something cannot be experience or felt.
The word explains the haunting, the sensation of being lost, the foreshadowing of disease that hovers over this collection of poem songs.
Jake Berry is an artist. He paints these songs with a singular brush stroke. Folk and blues the genres chosen, a pleasant voice, a soothing sound but the words are like mystic bullets. They cannot physically harm you but they can scare you, shock you or burrow under your skin and haunt you.
No one has time any more for music with layers of meaning beyond the prosody and tone of the artist. No one has time for poetry but poets. Take the time and get to know an artist of rare and gifted voice...or simply enjoy the sound.
The first word that comes to mind in describing Jake Berry's Liminal Blue is Haunting. The second is Illusive. Jake Berry is a poet. He chooses words with care and sensitivity. The word Blue is obvious and inevitable. The mood is melancholy like the burning sunset of a toxic sky. The key word is Liminal and readers will be forgiven if they have to reference its meaning: belonging to the point of conscious awareness below which something cannot be experience or felt.
The word explains the haunting, the sensation of being lost, the foreshadowing of disease that hovers over this collection of poem songs.
Jake Berry is an artist. He paints these songs with a singular brush stroke. Folk and blues the genres chosen, a pleasant voice, a soothing sound but the words are like mystic bullets. They cannot physically harm you but they can scare you, shock you or burrow under your skin and haunt you.
No one has time any more for music with layers of meaning beyond the prosody and tone of the artist. No one has time for poetry but poets. Take the time and get to know an artist of rare and gifted voice...or simply enjoy the sound.
Van Eaton's response:
Yes!!!!! Jack hit the mark here, and what is also amazing to me is that with all the intelligent lyrics, these songs and tunes are extremely accessible , regardless of a persons chosen genre this is a great listen!
If you want to dig into poetry and don't have time for the written word, plug this album in and you have the best of 2 worlds ..written poetry and great music. This is an amazing set!
Hank Lazer's response:
jake's new cd is elusive and liminal. expect to listen to it several times as you attune yourself to its haunting tunes. bravo!
1 comment:
jake's new cd is elusive and liminal. expect to listen to it several times as you attune yourself to its haunting tunes. bravo!
hank lazer
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