Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Thomas J Marchant - Cars From The 70's

Hear The Track Here


I'll bet you were wondering whether we would hear from Soundclick troubadour Thomas J Marchant but fear not, or fear greatly whichever is your preference, because here is with some scrap metal.. Oh good grief no, not THAT metal, car type metal. Thomas cautions us 'this is by no means a finished mix but I like this song' That's unusual for Thomas because he usually pushes his musical children out of the door as soon as they start squalling. It's part of his charm, if ya like. And I do like, along with many, many other people who have discovered this very original songwriter.

Thomas has dropped the acoustic guitar in this case for keys and piano accompaniment and, to my ears, that gives the track a fresher, brighter approach and a nice little departure from style. When I was a lot younger I had an early exposure to bands from Canterbury such as Soft Machine, Caravan et al and while I appreciated their music (the beginnings of prog-rock as it happens), it was their quintessential Englishness that had me gripped. Thomas J Marchant has many of the same qualities and not just because he comes from Maidstone (a town just down the road), but because he is so quirkily different to anything else around.

Having lived with this for a while I would scribe to the unfinished argument but even as it stands it as more than enough of interest. More than anything else, for me anyway, it's a beauty of a lyrical track; exactly what Thomas does so well. He's always been one of my favourite songwriters but - for all its unfinished-ness - Cars From The '70's is undoubted one of his best this year. Certainly in ideas and melodies if not in execution but even so I don't it really needs that much patching up because the style quality is all there.

Highly Recommended UK Alternative.

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