Stefanie Santana's "I Admit I Am Glad" arrives at a time when precious acoustic music appears to be on life support. It's an album that's simple sincerity is so delicate that Santana herself appears to be delivering a sad and unintentional eulogy to the genre.
That being said-it's so good that none of that hardly matters. The opening track "All the Obstacles" is the star maker and it's no wonder the album kicks off with it. It's obvious that Santana is gifted. Her phrasing alone has tiny hints of Dylan-esque mastery. "All the Obstacles" is the high water mark but it's marked so high that the remaining eight tracks hover microscopically close. "Moonspeak" even hints at something beyond it with it's slightly over-driven keyboard accents and Santana's voice stretched into the exasperated range that squeak & exhaust some perfectly desperate emotions. It's a relief to hear a songwriter that appreciates the space between things both technically and poetically.
"I Admit I Am Glad" is a solid effort by a musician that appears to be bursting with potential and an amazing voice. One can only hope when Santana eventually picks up an electric guitar that her sincerity, humor and delicate touch rise slightly above the roar. I'm betting on brilliant.
-William Chaffin
Lace Curtains' new LP "A Signed Piece of Paper" is Michael Coomers' manic, everyman poetry smashed delicately against an art-school interpretation of soul music. It's not only beautiful it's also beautifully heart-breaking. It's second by second chooglin for hooks and exasperated exhales emit flashes of brilliance...like sitting on a breezy, Midwest front porch on an overcast Sunday morning.
When Coomers' voice cracks in "Pink & Gold" it cuts into deep muscle tissue and never lets go and only minutes later the listener is thrown into an even MORE beautiful and Lennon-esque tune "Be Good" which feels like a continuation (possibly a more contemplative and lethargic one) of "Police Brutality" (the finest track from Lace Curtains' first album "The Garden of Joy and Well of Loneliness")
A Signed Piece of Paper isn't as instantly accessible as Garden of Joy but it's just as vital and important and without a doubt an arm's length more mature. Michael Coomers executes upon a real appreciation of aesthetics and fragility that makes a Signed Piece of Paper emote an honest & sensitive understanding of an examined life. The languishing time where his characters trade in the sadness of youth for something equally sad with clarity of foresight making it the Lace Curtains "morning after" record. A place filled with longing, sorrow and the spaces between the silence.
A Signed Piece of Paper is an amazing piece of work that quietly struts at the speed of memories and speaks of even greater things to come. This is Lace Curtains second act and it's nearly perfect-just as it should be.
-William Chaffin
Get "A Signed Piece of Paper" here:
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