The young folk-pop duo eastmountainsouth debuts as one of the first releases on the new DreamWorks label, signed by legendary musician Robbie Robertson and produced by legendary knobsman Mitchell Froom. Whether they’ll live up to the obviously high expectations placed on them remains, as they say, to be seen.
The group is Kat Maslich and Peter Adams, both of whom sing and play stringed things, backed by Froom on keyboards and a drummer named Quinn. Maslich and Adams truly have a wonderful way with harmony, and voices that blend beautifully, which they make use of on every track. The backing, as might be expected by those familiar with Froom’s previous work with the likes of Los Lobos, Richard Thompson and Elvis Costello, is adventurously modern, with lots of piano, synthesizers and drum loops. Think of it as folk music for the dance-hall crowd.
The album opens with a fetching and somewhat stylized cover of Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times,” as if to set the tone for a record of solid Americana. But the rest of the album is pretty straight contemporary folk in its lyrics and focus, and even in most of the instrumentation, although it does lean heavily on keyboards and it has some percussion not normally found on folk albums.
With a few exceptions, the tempo is slow to medium, and the subject runs heavily to angsty love songs, such as the languid “Ghost,” the pretty “Show Me the River,” and the atmospheric, Cowboy Junkies-style “Rain Come Down.” The final track, “On Your Way,” is heavily laden with Hearts-of-Space style synthesizers.
But there are also some touches of fiddle and mandolin in several songs, and nearly all feature acoustic guitars. “You Dance,” is the most up-tempo number. It has a driving dance-hall beat and the sound of a didgeridoo — whether real or synthesized isn’t clear from the review copy’s liner notes.
The highlight tracks are “So Are You to Me,” a short but sweet love song with very effective lyrics and a simple arrangement of fiddle and piano backing Kat’s lead vocal; “Alban and Amandy,” an uptempo, mesmerizing duet on what seems to be a Celtic mythic battle/love song featuring a banjo and booming, echo-laden percussion; and the elegiac “Mark’s Song.” With these few notable exceptions, this is promising if unremarkable material for a debut.
(DreamWorks, 2003)
