Findlay Brown
Separated By The Sea release date: 1 Mar 2007 // label: Peacefrog
OK. Three times through this album and I still don’t understand why it isn’t the one causing all of the ructions. There are a lot of top male singer/songwriters around at the moment but this guy should be the daddy. He has the voice, the songs, the production, the music – did I mention the songs?
Findlay Brown has been influenced by some of the great songwriters but he is producing songs that might harken to others style but who are his and his alone.
'Down Among The Dead Men’ is a brooding piece of paranoia with Brown’s voice multi-layered over a beautifully picked acoustic guitar line, soft handclaps in the distance providing the rhythm. 'Separated By The Sea’ is a folky number with Brown’s soft voice over a simple guitar riff a la James Taylor out of Clifford T Ward. 'The Loneliness I Fear’ could have been written by Nick Drake himself and would have been claimed as a masterpiece, 'Paper Man’ with its skewed strings and Beatlesque lyric and the whole thing finishing on 'Twin Green Pram’ - utterly simple and melancholic voice over picked guitar.
Musically Brown has kept it simple although there are plenty of 'unexpected’ sounds that on the second listen make absolute sense – the Pedal Steel on 'Come Home’ for example.
There isn’t a single piece of filler on this album and every track leads to another little exclamation of delight. The production by Simon Lord is uncluttered and allows the music to burst out and there is a sense that this is a huge talent being born here.
Brown has some strong company in terms of Seth Lakeman, Derren Nauendorf and the rest of the new folk field but he is at least as good as those others and could be a huge talent given the chance.
Thu May 10, 2007 8:33 pm
