Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Jon Solo - Once Upon a Time Ago

Hear The Track Here

OK, so I admit that any guy who can get so obsessed with Elisabeth Shue that he writes a song about her is an OK guy with me because wooooaaahhhhhh know what I mean? (Ed: down boy, down). Mind you, when you can cite influences such as The Beatles, Brian Wilson, Todd Rundgren and Tears For Fears and write and perform music up to that high standard, what does Jon Solo need with such salacious thoughts as mine? Here I am fixating on the female (as usual) and in the meantime Jon is busy pumping out some of the best tracks I have heard in a good while. Having said that, most of the tracks I have reviewed have been from some time ago and Once Upon a Time Ago is smoking hot off the press (as it were) and is the first track to surface from his upcoming Head, Heart, & Hands CD.

Out of the two Jon Solo tracks I have reviewed - Elisabeth Shue (June 2009) and Circles (January 2011) - both paid off handsomely with Must Have ratings for their style and sheer dedication to musical duty. I was definitely looking forward to hearing something new... Now while I admit to a certain disappointment that this is not a vocal track (probably because I was expecting one) that's about as far as any gripe is likely to go. Jon showed me some time ago that his grasp of the nuances of making music is spot on, as is his ability to produce it to a standard rarely heard from yer average internet musician.

So, does it actually sound like an instrumental waiting for a vocal? Wellll, no, although I'm sure that with such a thing aboard some of those nuances of production would get lost and that would be a shame (Ed: said the techie head, not everyone likes production tricks). At base, Once Upon A Time Ago is essentially electronic power pop, all urgency, galacial sounds and pounding rhythm a la 1980's stylee. Now one of the things I loved about that scene was their ability to make electronic music with heart, soul and fire which, given the medium, is not an easy task. The warm richness of the sounds, the intensely involving arrangement and the sheer attention to detail make this happen, and incidentally make this an instrumental that will definitely stand out of the crowd.

Highly Recommended Electronic dance.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Do you have 0 comments because of your panty waste lack of criticism. Do you turn down every comment because no one agrees with you. Maybe Dr.landy has gotten a hold of you as well.
Tu pac lives forever!!