{"id":22266,"date":"2022-01-09T05:30:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-09T10:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22266"},"modified":"2022-01-09T08:37:31","modified_gmt":"2022-01-09T13:37:31","slug":"album-review-low-level-clouds-s-t","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/09\/album-review-low-level-clouds-s-t\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Low Level Clouds — s\/t"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There was a time, a half century ago, when the concept of one-man (one-person<\/i>, really) \u201cbands\u201d was quite novel. Working in the studio and taking advantage of an impressive dexterity on multiple instruments \u2013 and with studio gear \u2013 and exploiting the possibilities of Les Paul\u2019s multi-tracking technology, select artists created works that sounded like a band, even though the music was the product and execution of an individual, working alone.<\/p>\n

In the second decade of the 21st<\/sup> century, such solo project barely elicit a raised eyebrow. Everybody who wants to do it can do it. The technology is now easily within the reach of most every artist, and \u2013 if they know what they\u2019re doing, they can achieve studio-quality results without, y\u2019know, an actual studio. That\u2019s handy in an era of quarantines.<\/p>\n

But creative\/aesthetic success isn\u2019t guaranteed. Just because you know how to play those instruments and work the recording equipment doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019ll make an album that anybody would actually want to hear. For that, you need good songs and an appealing sound.<\/p>\n

Christopher Coats possesses all of the requisite qualities. Working alone and calling his project Low Level Clouds, the Hawaii-based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer has created a ten-song album packed with catchy, intriguing and intelligent tunes.<\/p>\n

Coats has a lot on his mind; the lyrics of his songs rise above standard-fare pop. But there\u2019s an elliptical, cryptic quality to those lyrics; a first listen won\u2019t always reveal what each song is about. But there\u2019s nothing so weighty as to make listening to the album an overly intellectual exercise. The songs are strong, filled with melody.<\/p>\n

Coats displays an impressive ability to change up the textures; while there\u2019s a cohesive quality to the album as a whole, the songs\u2019 individual character is quite varied. The rocking \u201cWild Things\u201d could almost be the work of a different artist than the equally tuneful \u201cReplaced by a DJ.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s subtlety \u2013 and a hint of reggae \u2013 on \u201cPerfect.\u201d On \u201cSpeaking of Sudden Changes of Subject,\u201d Coats weds a Dylanesque lyrics approach to a moody, power chording rocker. And his proficiency on guitars and keyboards is impressive; he never shows off, but Coats displays a keen sense of what each of his songs needs.<\/p>\n

Some of his production choices are a bit odd: there\u2019s a scraping sound throughout \u201cHear Shaped Cliffs\u201d that\u2019s more distracting than anything else; it\u2019s not clear why the sound is there. But Coats\u2019 massed chorus vocals and the appealing, jangling nature of the song are strong enough so that the weird sound doesn\u2019t wreck the tune. And it\u2019s an outlier; the other songs on Low Level Clouds<\/i> don\u2019t feature distracting such elements.<\/p>\n

Low Level Clouds<\/i> is an impressive debut, and should whet listeners\u2019 appetites for a followup release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time, a half century ago, when the concept of one-man (one-person, really) \u201cbands\u201d was quite novel. Working in the studio and taking advantage of an impressive dexterity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[4745,4744],"class_list":["post-22266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-christopher-coats","tag-low-level-clouds","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22268,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22266\/revisions\/22268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}