This stunning debut long-player from BENJY FERREE perfectly combines delicious mindlessness with poignant significance. The ten songs here are a touching, sometimes scathing and frequently beautiful rollercoaster ride through the artist's unique and eccentric take on a kind of country-steeped nursery-rhyme blues.
The images conjured up include everything from the childlike to the natural, and yet the uncompromising symbolism still points effortlessly towards something altogether more significant.
It is crucial to mention that the California-raised musician spent time as a nanny to the three children of a famous LA scriptwriter, throwing in his own creations for their approval during hours spent singing Dylan and Beatles songs with them – this inclination towards the unconditional appeal of all things childlike enhances his own perspective (characterised by a near-religious love of the work of David Lynch), an approach that's dedicated first and foremost to the purity of the soul, but in a way which sets great stall in the surreal, betraying a surefire obsession with Twin Peaks! This blend of absolute truth with the unfathomably strange gives Ferree's songs the widest possible appeal – and time and time again, they hit upon the heartstrings with unerring pinpoint accuracy.
There is no time wasted either. Opener 'In The Countryside' is built on a mantra-like 3-chord acoustic loop that spins the senses along with the dizzy “Happy hands all in the air-oh no-o-o-ooo” refrain - it's got everything bouncing off the central rhythm's simplicity with childlike abandon. The same is true of the 'Lonesome-Pine'-esque block-crashing clog-dance 'A Little At A Time', with the reverb-heavy vocals conducting this mournfully surreal attempt to go through the (slow-)motions in reverse.
The influence of 'Countr-ee mee-oo-sic' is furthered by the twanging steel pulse of the title track(with it's ominous subtitle 'It's a Long Way Down') which brims with 70's rock urgency – not to mention the unmistakable helping of twelve-bar sensibilities that see it it spinning wildly across the wide open spaces of the heart and mind.
Harmonica-happy 'Hollywood Sign' stirs the senses with the aid of humming backing vocals – it's a veritable spectrum spanner of kaleidoscopic proportions, like an acoustic colour coded waiting game.
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The near dormant strings rise to prominence during the gorgeous 'They Were Here', and the effect is devastating, winding around the arpeggio and nursery-rhyme refrain in order to add weight to the chiming endless consequences of the adult subject matter.
A return to mindless abandon permeates the cyclic arpeggio of 'Why Bother', as the guitar steers the steadying weight of the vocals alongside a home-recorded harmonica. The myriad of polar opposites fills out the increasingly weighty feel of this ominous premonition, centred down on the line “Da rabbit's runnin' from da wolf'” and represented here in an oddball tale that gathers momentum- childlike, yet with more significance apparent the older the mind. It's some feat, and the results glimmer with auspicious significance.
The Finale 'Lost In The Woods', with a capo altering the pitch of the acoustic's simple beauty is quite literally breathtaking. Like the rest of the cream of this crop, it's appeal is primarily childlike, yet the sentiment echoes far beyond the ostensible fear of The Devil, and into something far more exploratory. The song is it's own private Idaho, twisting and turning against the inevitable current of it's structure, deliciously lengthy and hauntingly touching. Ferree's oddly endearing vocal is blessed with a touch of childish innocence also, heightening it's beauty whilst bringing an all-trusting vulnerability floating to the fore.
This collection plays like ten takes on popular lullabies, such is the intimate delivery. The finished collection however, reaches out far beyond the parameters of even the seemingly limitless childlike imagination, as these songs strike beautifully home every time, casting a spell I defy you not to fall under.
This is the last word in enchanted soul-searching, and a devastating, highly addictive record. Stunning from beginning to end, I kid you not!
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