Silverado – Ricochet Love
Genre: Folk rock, Folk, Americana
Similar artists: Lord Huron, Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, Tyler Childers, Gregory Alan Isakov
Luis Bunuel used to say that if given only a few more years to live, he would like to spend two hours of every day working and the rest dreaming. Indeed, his work, just like the work of many artists from the Golden Age if Guitar Music are concerned with the unconscious.
Pop music, in its different guises, used to be a great ally of the imagination. First of all, for the most part, it required the listener to have one. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to enjoy or comprehend it.
It made songwriters and musicians willing to take chances. They’d risk putting out songs that did not reveal their essence in the first 15 seconds. These made for terrible TikTok material but great life-long companions.
Silverado’s Ricochet Love is music that belongs to the soundtrack of Western movies that can play exclusively on your mind. It relies on a nimble, effective baritone and the country of understated folk-country playing that is bound to stir up images. Love affairs and gunfights don’t only happen in the movies.
George Gaudy – Down Down Below
Similar artists: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, 16 horsepower
Genre: Folk rock, Americana, Southern Rock
Besides wishing to get attention, why do songwriters burden themselves with their work? Why would someone waste away their days trying to put words to music and to then convince others that these tunes somehow relate to them?
For the most part, it’s a way of telling the truth without getting murdered. Or, at the very least, it’s a form of confession that our world can accept. The words produced by some of the greatest lyricists might be unacceptable if they were simply posted by the same people on their social media without any explanation.
Best of all, the people who craft these songs have no real responsibility for the songs. Once they’ve contributed to them being born, they can choose to let them out into the world. They then belong to whoever will have them.
George Gaudy’s folk-influenced grungey Down Down Below sounds like the confession of a man forced to confront their life in absolute silence. It’s a song that swells and retreats like waves crashing on the waves. Gaudy’s singing, a rugged baritone, adds the color that help the words and music truly come into view.
