
Callum Pitt – I Feel A God and Devil In This Room
Genre: Indie Folk
It takes a lot to try and write a simple guitar song without the pressure of having to pull the audience into a different world entirely. The ones who manage to organize these kinds of journeys are special.
They know it too. Most of the time. That’s why it often happens that they take their gift for granted. How can someone possessing this kind of special talent not start to believe that anything they sing will be a piece of veritable magic?
Still, there’s a minority in there as well. There are those that work at sharpening their craft. It helps the ghostly visions better come into view. It helps with how they relate these stories to the world.
Callum Pitt’s done all the work of sharpening his songwriting craft and thus is able to deliver the eerie I Feel A God and Devil In This Room with ease and grace. The song floats by like spirits dueling in the air. It’s a strange, mystical affair that only music can help relate to.
VVonder – Hurt So Much
Genre: Power Pop, Classic Rock
Similar artists: Elton John
Lester Bangs may have lived in fear of this moment, but rock, too, was about to face an identity crisis right about the time that it had a couple of decades in the world. One of the problems, of course, was that the rock had aged prematurely. By the early part of the 1970s, all of the trips and the promises of revolution had taken their toll.
Many of the great musicians retreated to the studio, treating it as a would-be temple from which to beam down a new kind of blues, one born of precious but defeated vocal melodies and expertly crafted instrumental tracks. This was no time to rock out but consolidate or, perhaps, attempt to find wisdom in equilibrium. Rock stars aren’t breaking their wrists these days either, but the warmth of that 70s balladeering has endured only in a few places.
VVonder’s tender tribute to Elton John ballads titled Hurt so much achieves the bizarre task of making 70s soft-rock sound exotic. Blame much of this on the vocals that soar beautifully in the tune’s chorus. Meanwhile, the studio, with, one would imagine, slicker and slimmer recording equipment takes on the rest of the burden. This boy ain’t too young to be singing the blue-u-u-ues.