I reckon that this is a really good time to be a music fan, as it is to be a musician. But, before you start yelling at your computer and start Googling my home address, let me first make my case, and allow me to zero in on the songs of Gwynn Davies as proof.
Since the dawn of pop music, the people selling it, and many of the ones making it in hopes of fame and glory, have tried to optimize for maximum yield. This has meant that, eventually, listeners got more pro musicians than serious artists, more songs recorded in a hurry, and more and more songs that imitate past trends. Frankly, a lot of that is quite boring.
The upside, however, is that it has created an opposition of which lo-fi folk-pop songwriter Gwynn Davies is a part. And, it’s not just artists providing something different. In my experience, more than ever, fans of music demand artists with whom they can interact, desire the warmth of a real performance, and treasure a real emotional connection.
Those are the things that Davies tries to provide on his most recent collection of acoustic tracks, on the short album, “The Definition of Insanity, A Commodity, A Human Being.”
Take a listen to the album opener, “Dark Days & the Ripples in Between,” and you’re very likely to notice the warmth of the lead vocals and how well the song’s strong melodies carry through this lo-fi, barely produced track. Davies is likely going for an intimate sound, and it’s the best decision he could’ve made for these tunes.
This approach certainly fits with the lyrical theme of many of these songs. Davies has a gift for gently singing about dangling from the edge. On “The Insomniac,” the songwriter details illusions playing tricks on his mind. On the aforementioned opening track, he deals with the promise of fighting the good fight despite all the struggles. And, on “Corporate America,” Davies musters the strength to smile at his homeland’s cultural domination of the world.
There are two other things worth noting, two other strengths of this EP. First of all, Davies’ singing over an acoustic guitar backing is a good fit for his songwriting. This creates the feeling of being in a tiny room with the singer-songwriter. It makes you feel as if the author is presenting the songs for the first time and has chosen you as the audience.
Secondly, the instrumental songs, all composed of picked or strummed acoustic guitar sections, help give the EP a mood of its own and will make more devoted listeners want to return to it on that basis.
But where does that all leave us? Hearing Gwynn Davies’ stripped-down approach to performing is a quick reminder of why witnessing songs develop organically is something that we must never take for granted. There’s just no replacing this kind of approach.
