Paul Mark is a new name to me despite the fact that his career has spanned for over eighteen years and this is his eighth album. Enough for his own promoters to give him the unflattering label of 'veteran'.
Normally he sings and plays with his band The Van Dorens on the North American bar and festival circuit but this is a solo outing and an instrumental guitar album to boot.
It's his second such collection, Roadside Blues was his first and, he says "the same rootsy music instincts are involved with this new one".
Many of the tunes are played solo, and live, with some expert fingerpicking on either a 6 or 12 string acoustic guitar. A few have subtle layered effects but mostly it feels likes he's gone into the studio alone and laid-down the tracks, playing them to his best ability but without fretting over small errors.
Only one track - Mirage Avenue # 2 - uses a full band and this seems entirely out of place alongside the other twelve tunes.
One of the best tracks is Rail Yard, which has a lively quality that made me recall the name of British solo musician Gordon Giltrap.
The sunny feel of Land Rush/Kings Counsel also stands out, a track which , like Mirage Avenue #1 - uses slide guitar to give just a hint of an Hawaiian flavour.
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The slower, Kings Counsel part of that track is reprised later in a simpler solo acoustic arrangement. This is one of several tunes-Ariel Island and Enterrement being other examples - with a more mellow, even melancholy, mood.
Mud River Blues and Bug Jar, on the other hand, include some nice ragtime touches.
Over the course of nearly fifty minutes, there is no lack of variety and the crisp clean production cannot be faulted. At the same time, a few more idiosyncratic touches would have compensated for the absence of vocals and given a fuller sense of the personality behind the pieces.
I wholly agree with Paul Mark when he says that"the human ear prefers music that breathes with oddness and imperfection, not with mechanism and precision. and a little more emphasis on this oddness would have added some much needed spice to these pieces.
Paul Mark's Website
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