CANON BLUE
Halcyon EP
Rumraket 2007
04 Tracks. 17mins10secs
Format: Digital

Following the release of his debut album as Canon Blue, New Orleans-based Daniel James dropped a perfectly formed four-track EP in Rumraket’s stocking just before Christmas. The EP, which is available to download for free from the Canon Blue Myspace and Rumraket sites (see below), features four brand new tracks, recorded in November 2007 in his bedroom, with a handful of friends lending a hand. Halcyon is, according to James, a celebration of winter, a period during which he feels particularly creative.

Set in a similar style to James’s excellent Colonies album, the songs collected here denote however a gentle evolution in the way James assembles his pop songs and gives them a definite edge. The melodies appear more confident and refined, the soundscapes are increasingly cinematic and the vocal performances have gained in definition, yet the songs still have a subtle air of naivety about them.

As the opening title track rises from initial processed guitar stutter and progressively swells into an intricately layered orchestral noise cloud before dying all too suddenly on a single note, James clearly reassess the space within his music by bringing forward real instrumentation and taming down his more technological side so it works in perfect symbiosis. Ennui, (French for boredom), shows a similar approach as a piano cascades down on a catchy melody which appears in turn uplifting or melancholic, while the firmly paced beat which seats in the background works as a tempered counterpoint to James’s vocals. Avatar Furr is a much more upbeat and pressing affair, but the melody ebbs and flows as the beat retires for a moment, leaving for a moment the orchestral drapes and swirling piano lines to lead. The highlight of this EP comes with the cinematic closing piece, Kingfisher Sweet, as James the singer steps back to leave James the musician sole at the helm of this ambitious miniature pop epic.

With this excellent new EP, Daniel James refines his sound and steps up the pace from his debut album, revealing a much wider and evocative sound while retaining the very essence of Colonies. Not to be missed!

4.3/5

Canon Blue (MySpace) | Rumraket

CANON BLUE
Colonies
RUM010
Rumraket 2007
11 Tracks. 43mins55secs

Signed to Efterklang’s Rumraket imprint, which originally spawned Grizzly Bear, Canon Blue is singer song writer Daniel James. Originally from Virginia, James moved to New Orleans in early 2005 where he found himself playing guitar in a band. However, things soon turned sour and he returned to Virginia, escaping the devastation caused by hurricane Katrina by a couple of weeks. He now lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

James shows a taste for catchy melodies which are then wrapped in distortions, treated guitars, electronics and acoustic instrumentation, which is not without recalling Echoboy or Khonnor. Colonies, his debut album, was partly composed on his grand mother’s piano before recording each song in his bedroom. He plays virtually all the instruments and also takes on all vocal duties, with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor on mixing duties. Claiming influences ranging from Claude Debussy, Scott Walker and Serge Gainsbourg to Autechre, Boards Of Canada and Super_Collider, James creates here an album rich in textures and sounds where delicate melodies are given widescreen arrangements, often turning them into quietly cinematic pieces.

Although the music tentatively leans toward pop and rock forms, this is only a loose framework for James, who continuously brings on elements of folk and electronica to punctuate his songs. If the format is neither original nor groundbreaking, it is developed and applied with great care and conviction. Songs such as the softly focused Treehouse, Rum Diary or Odds And Ends or the more angular Battle Hymn are as many atmospheric shades, ranging from light and airy guitars to distorted and fragmented soundscapes, coiled tightly around strong melodic themes. On Sea Monsters, Mouth To Mouth and closing Baptesme, James opts for much more openly evocative arrangements serving sweeping melodies to great effect.

At times, James’s vocals vaguely recalls Jeff Buckley, especially on opener Treehouse, or a much more restrained Thom York, but these passing resemblances thankfully never overshadow his effort. Colonies appears at once slightly naïve in its approach and confident in execution, making it an inviting debut album and a strong addition to the consistently excellent Rumraket catalogue.

3.9/5

Canon Blue | Rumraket
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