SWATI-
Small Gods
Bluhamock
Records
review | by Ross Rice
Imagine
that you have the world’s most amazing guitar. It’s
primarily an acoustic guitar, one that you can feel vibrating against
your chest as you play it, but it also sports an impressive array
of delays, distortions, and post-modern tweezatronics - in short,
a full band’s worth of sonic possibilities in one two-handed
package.
On
Small Gods, Swati and producer/guitarist Duke McVinnie (Shivaree)
must have got a hold of one of those, because it sounds humongous.
It’s always tempting for a singer-songwriter to just throw
their songs at a producer, who then throws them to a hired rhythm
section, and develops a “band sound” around the songs
in hope of achieving a popular representation. With vocals that
never rise into upper-range dramatics, Swati eschews this in favor
of a womanwith- a-guitar rebel stance, employing this incredible
instrument (via overdubs) to convey a distinctly personal tone,
with occasional tasteful accompaniment.
“I
got a prostitute in an Atlantic City bar” starts the second
song, “Blackjack,” and you get the feeling Swati wants
to shock you with sometimes brutal language to make you see her
as a tough New York City traveler with a weary eye on the world,
while her amazing guitar fills in sonic space. “Big Bang”
drops in with insistent delayed triplets at full treble blast, flange
fuzz galore, then down to a whisper. It’s nice to hear a new
CD with real dynamics, not obscenely compressed. “2 O’clock
In The Morning” feels like a nice late night diner cup o’
coffee, with a combo in the corner. From here, the CD moves nicely
toward “Stay,” featuring a full band treatment with
a tasty Jane Scarpantoni string arrangement. A strippeddown open
tuning version of Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire”
works well with her low key delivery...
CONTINUE...
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