Busy busy busy. I got married, Evan’s getting married. Woof town. Anyways, here are some things I noticed about these records that may be informing are music soon:

Ry Cooder – Self titled

This is Ryland’s first record, made under the supervision of Lenny Waronker/Brian Wilson collaborator Van Dyke Parks. Cooder had played with Taj Mahal in Rising Sons, and helped arrange and played on Captain Beefheart’s magnificent debut “Safe as Milk”.

Cooder is known as a guitar virtuoso, but what amazed me about this record is his remarkable restraint. He’s obviously gifted, but there isn’t a wasted guitar solo to be found. The instrumental pieces, such as Cooder’s lone compositional contribution “Available Space”, offers slippery slide guitar dueling with Van Dykes’s piano for less than two minutes time. “France Chance” is a rampaging rhythm guitar stomp that the Velvet Underground wished they’d copped, and “One Meatball” pits Cooder’s tentative baritone against a wall of orchestration that somehow manages not to completely swallow the dark humor of the song.

Continuing the theme of economy, Antony and the Johnston’s debut record is mostly piano and vocals. Whether it’s Rufus Wainwright, Boy George, Lou Reed or Antony’s warbling operatics, the voice and words are the centerpiece of this record. The drums and bass that accompany the record are expertly recorded, adding a gritty punch and bottom that such a muted experience demands.

The balance is perfect, as the occasional murmurs of synthesizer and orchestral swells accompanying the sparse arrangements are give room to color the rather somber environment the songs inhabit.

Neither of these records are particularly long, probably averaging at 40 minutes. Each artists knows their strength and play to it, but don’t give in to ambition’s sometime suffocating grasp.