Patty Larkin - Watch the Sky
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Free Music Notes for Watch the Sky
Free Music Review: A great musician/singer
Hit: 5 Stars
A superb album, her voice, guitar playing work together wonderfully. I've enjoyed Patty's music over the years and found this album to be up to her excellent standards.Free Music Review: Solid
Hit: 4 Stars
Saw Patty last nite in Mpls, didn't know a thing about her. Bought this CD, she signed it. Good show, nice person. Gets better each spin. Listened to it 3x today, really dig it. Free Music Review: Well-rounded Americana
Hit: 4 Stars
Veteran singer-songwriter Larkin turns in an incredibly well-rounded effort here: Americana pop that stays true to its roots but also updates itself with some well-chosen synthetic beats. What's more, she wrote, played and produced everything you hear on this disc. And she scores on every count: the writing is more than competant, the production is crystal clear, and the playing is very accomplished -- for those keeping count, that's twelve different instruments she plays. Her singing voice is a strong alto, perhaps roughly the same range as Melissa Ethridge, but clear and without any faux-huskyness. Though this recording appears on Vanguard, a hallmark folks label, Larkin shouldn't be pigeon-holed: she blends elements of folk, roots and pop into something that is new and irredcuible to any of them. She shows up a lot of lesser talents (Sheryl Crow comes easily to mind) and holds her own in a long line of singer-songwriters going back to, whom, Joan Baez(?) and ahead from there to Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman and Lucinda Williams. Free Music Review: Sky Plateau
Hit: 4 Stars
Patty is Great! You can count on her for innovative tunes and superb solo performances. She's definitely tops. But, somehow, I think, just maybe she has reached a plateau here. This album plays great the first ten times you hear it, then it tapers off. It happens to all artists, I suppose, they do something great and grow with it for a while, but then, somehow, they become a victim of their own success. Things start to sound too familiar, too soon.
She's a champ though, and I'm sure there is more to come from her.
You go girl!
Free Music Review: One of my favorite Larkin albums!
Hit: 5 Stars
I would include "Watch the Sky" right up there with "Perishable Fruit", "Strangers World", and "Angels Running" as my favorite albums. This new album certainly has a wider variety of song compositions and stylings than what she has released before. The Fender Stratocaster is used more here, and some songs stray over into funky blues, Eastern European stylings (on the "Phone Message" composition), and other one-offs that she tosses into the overdubbings that make it, both with the interesting aural textures and quirky lyrics, a Patty Larkin song. More than any other of her previous releases, this album alternates between dreamy or haunting songs (like "Cover Me", "All Souls Day", and the "Bound Brook" instrumental), traditional folk, and what could probably be labeled more as "Adult Contemporary" (even though I am not really sure what that genre really encompasses). The folk purist might eschew the use of electric guitars on a folk album or (gasp!) the use of drum loops and electronic sound loops overdubbed together, but I do think that it all feels right at home here and I applaud Patty's experimental inclinations to stretch herself into different areas.
I just saw Patty play live here in town last night, accompanied by her acoustic 6-string, bazouki, and Fender Strat. When she started into her "Phone Message" song, first she started the triphop/trance drum loop, and when she started playing her bazouki before singing, it felt like the kind of hip instrumental that you might hear walking into a nightclub in Eastern Europe. When she picked up her Fender Strat to play the high-reverb slide guitar "Bound Brook" instrumental, she called it her "folk Fender", and towards the end of that piece, she actually picked up a violin bow and (tried to) also play the guitar with that. That did not work so well, but she chuckled afterwards and said that was her "Led Zeppelin impersonation". Again, I applaud her for experimenting.
The "Walking In My Sleep" song is also noteworthy in that it sounds less like previous Patty Larkin songs, and more like Billie Holiday meets Amy Winehouse.
After a 5-year hiatus, does this new album mark the beginning of a (even) more diverse, eclectic Patty? Will her next album even include accordion and some synthesizers in the overdubs? We'll see. But I do like this album, and it has grown on me with each repeated listening.
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