After the disappointment of Nickel Creek’s second CD last year,
\nI was a little concerned as to what Sean Watkins might come up with
\nfor his second solo CD,
\n26 Miles<\/i>. It seemed a little early to put out new material,
\nas if Watkins was rushed; and as we all know, most of the time
\n“rushed”=”bad.” Thankfully, in this case, I was wrong;
\n26 Miles<\/i> is a return to form for guitar wunderkind Watkins,
\nand a daring CD to boot.<\/p>\n
Watkins doesn’t rest on his laurels here. Rather than another
\nalbum of newgrass and guitar instrumentals,
\n26<\/i> is almost a folk CD instead; the focus is on Watkins’
\nsongwriting and vocals, and they turn out to be pretty darn
\nspecial. Along the way, he experiments with lyrical jazz forms
\n(“Letters Never Sent”), Duncan-Sheik-like vocal stylings (“Locking
\nDoors”) and violin and guitar stylings that remind me of nothing
\nelse than the New Age group Shadowfax (“N.M.I.”).<\/p>\n
Indeed, Watkins proves himself to be an adept of many different
\nmusical stylings on
\n26 Miles<\/i>. The production is simple and stripped down, really
\nhighlighting the chameleon act going on here, as Watkins continues
\nto reinvent himself from song to song. There are some truly
\nastonishing things going on on this CD; it’s almost as if for
\nthirteen tracks Watkins became thirteen different musicians.<\/p>\n
Other tracks of note: the straight-ahead newgrass instrumental
\nwork of “Chutes And Ladders”; Watkins’ astonishingly expressive
\nvocals on “On Ice”; the traditional country sounds of “Hiding”;
\nfunky sampling and tape loops on “26 Miles”; the distorted
\npercussion and rich guitar work on “Brick Window” — this is a CD
\nwhere you just remain agape, astonished at the sheer talent
\ninherent in Watkins’ varying virtuosity.<\/p>\n
\n26 Miles<\/i> is a truly great CD. Don’t miss it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6832],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-37579","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sean-watkins","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37579"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37579"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}