No sooner than the clock struck midnight on New Year’s and two of my 13 Performers to Watch for ’13 are out of the gate with new releases!
River Tiber, Synapses
I’ve been waiting for River Tiber’s sophomore album to drop once I found out it was coming this past summer. Once again, singer/producer/musical whiz Tommy Paxton-Beesley has made it available for free download as he has done with his other releases. While it’s easily recognizable as River Tiber with its unique blend of pop/rock and clear influences from jazz and classical like on the debut From Now On, this time Synapses explores additions of much more electronic experimentation as well as tribal rhythms that sound like they could be African or South American. Radiohead meets Led Zeppelin meets Peter Gabriel meets Jeff Buckley meets Philip Glass meets M83 meets BT in more dreamy landscapes that are clearly soundtracks to something visual that we can’t yet see.
We’ve already been introduced to “What Are You Afraid Of” in advance of the album, a song that takes a little time to brew but is certainly a grower. The other standout songs within are “Reverie”, with vocal bursts that Robert Plant would appreciate; “The Ancients”, with a repetitive guitar refrain that sticks like glue underneath the other elements in the song; “The Star Falls”, whose snappy electronic rhythm ticks away under a soaring vocal backdrop; and “Prophets” which draws from as much early 70’s progressive rock as it might from songs in Buckley’s Grace album. My new favourite might be “The City”, with an almost too-slight, sometimes gradually disembodied, but compelling and haunting vocal set to a slow steady beat. As forlorn and isolated as the music may sound, the lyrics seem to be about resolution and moving on to something better.
Synapses doesn’t hesitate to mess with sounds, incorporating dialogue and other samples as a part of its inherent musicality. Sometimes the notes sound deliberately off-key or too sharp or too flat, but they don’t make the music any less melodic. It takes a lot of talent to pull this off successfully.
Tommy and River Tiber have created an album that will endure throughout 2013 and beyond. Synapses begs for mini-movies; Tommy has already created and directed the videos you’ll find on River Tiber’s You Tube page, so there will be more on the way. Tell your friends about River Tiber and Synapses. River Tiber plays an album release party on Thursday January 3 at The Drake Hotel in Toronto.
Baiyu “Again”
One of the first songs you would have found online for free after midnight on New Year’s Day was “Again” by New York delight Baiyu. This gal knows how to execute a ballad, and you can feel the finality in the heartbreak at the end of a relationship in both the words and the vocal. Baiyu plans to release something new every month, which is pretty ambitious in a saturated online world, but her talent is unmistakable and each new song is well worth discovering.
Download “Again” for free right here.
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