by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
Mr. Smolin is a brilliant lyricist and an artful musician.
Reading some great poetry is reason enough to check out the liner notes of his debut album, At Apogee.
Barry Smolin, whose stage name is Mr. Smolin, lives in Los Angeles, where he hosts and produces a psychedelic radio show called "The Music Never Stops."
The album gets better with repeated listening, even though he sounds drunk - completely wasted in an alternate dimension of words that fly in and out of his head. The lyrics seem to want to be taken seriously, but the vocal presentation puts a lopsided, goofy smile on death's face.
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The musical score is piano-based, peppered with guitar, bass, horns, percussion and accordion.
If one listens to the album and imagines it being performed live, it is even better.
Mr. Smolin finds a happy medium between the avant garde and the classical. His word choices have been compared to Bob Dylan's and Leonard Cohen's, although he is on a different musical plane.
Something new catches the listener's attention with each replay.
On tracks such as "Angels" and "Casper," Mr. Smolin humanizes our fears.
He wants us to expect the unexpected, or simply cast all expectations aside, when dealing with the unknown.
In "Dad is Dead," Mr. Smolin explores the concept of death and fills the song with poetic statements on loss.
"Rodeo" sounds like a hoedown of cowboys stuck on an island full of natives with a jazz musician watching from high in a palm tree.
Yeah, it is pretty weird stuff.
Still, aspiring songwriters might find At Apogee to be a key to unlocking their creativity.
At Apogee
Mr. Smolin
Grade: B
