Monday 9 April 2012

Jonah Tolchin - Criminal Man

The surfeit of what used to be called singer-songwriters and the opportunities offered by social media and the internet for men with guitars to put their music out has meant that it's a competitive environment out there. But there is an unappeased appetite in the UK, for raw, confessional Americana and those smart enough to come up with songs and a sound that sets them apart.

Thanks to the immediacy of Twitter (@natlyon) I was alerted to Jonah Tolchin and his album 'Criminal Man'. The opening finger-picked chords of 'Without A Sound' are nothing special but the first words "All my heroes and my idols, my friendships and my ghosts, leave me stranded here this morning, too close away from home" immediately sucked me into an intelligent mind at work. A few lines later  - "The car is filled with reasons to never get back in, I was once a stronger man till I confessed to all my sins". These are great lyrics, made even more remarkable that the writer of them is just 19 years old. People have walked this earth for many decades without being able to summon up the intelligent ambiguity contained in them.

The album develops these themes of honesty and personal responsibility in a voice which is resonant of a deep American music tradition. The playing is ambitiously simple, raw in places but confident in its naked soul-searching. There are some daring sonic departures - 'Fracking Nightmare' deploys the saw to wonderfully off-centre effect. The track 'Unless We Change' is as far removed from the self-pitying strains of traditional country music as you can get, it's a positive statement that we can create what we choose to apply our minds to - exactly the process Tolchin himself is engaged in.

Is this so called 'outlaw country'? Certainly Johnny Cash would have endorsed the dark human thoughts that stir in amongst the thirst for being alive and the damaged characters that inhabit the songs. 'This album is dedicated to change' it says on the tin and I can only begin to wonder at the future forks in the road we're set to take with this very rare talent.











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