London – If 2014’s inventive eponymous debut recording by Arc Iris whetted the appetite for the strange and beautiful, then its follow-up, Moon Saloon, provides a veritable banquet. The Providence, Rhode Island trio of songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jocie Adams, keyboard meister Zachary Tenorio-Miller, and percussionist Ray Belli has cast aside some of the debut’s trappings of Americana in favour of a musical palette as broad as the horizon. Arc Iris’ welding of traditional instruments with rock and orchestral elements is taken much further on Moon Saloon, and the result is a textural auditory delight. If you wanted a bridge between both records, it might be found in the debut album’s sprawling episodic workout, “Honor Of The Rainbows II.” The new album takes a musical cue from this but wraps it in swathes of brass and percussion.
Although currently pursuing her own projects, original band member cellist Robin Ryzcek is still very much to the fore on the record, but the new songs are more built around Ray Belli’s percussion, while electric guitar, synths, and liberal samples are skillfully interwoven with traditional strings and brass. It’s a melting pot that could get messy, yet Arc Iris produces a refined, cohesive blend. On an album that is simply bursting with musicality, a striking feature is how the expansiveness of the music compliments its lyrical themes. In a recent interview with Best New Bands, Jocie Adams expanded on the themes that hold the album together. The songs explore the complexities and tensions in everyday life; the very things that inhibit dreams. They make a plea for simplicity in an over-digitised age and offer a therapeutic balm for life’s woes.
Dampened beats and cello herald the first song of the 10-track album; “Kaleidoscope” itself a word that seems perfectly appropriate to how Arc Iris embraces its music. The measured opening gives way to clean guitar chords, syncopated drums, orchestral swirls, and keyboard samples over which Jocie Adams’ voice rises blissfully to soothe away life’s anxieties: “Give the worried man a rose.” The song takes cues from the ostentation of 70s prog rock without succumbing to its pretentiousness. To make sure you’re not listening to a Yes album, it’s followed by the gently loping “Kingdom Come,” which could be described, though hardly adequately, as lounge folk.
While Jocie Adams wrote most of the songs in a week-long retreat on an island on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee before getting together with the band to work on arrangements, “Paint With The Sun,” is a song though she co-wrote with Tenorio-Miller. It signals a return to the episodic structures evidenced by the opening track. It tells a fable-like tale of a boy who helps a woman in need; a simple kind of antidote to the political backdrop in so many nations, though cloaked in the most glorious music, highlighted by brass and pedal steel.
Variety is the watchword on the album. “Pretending” is pure musical theatre, while in “She Arose,” the ensemble weaves soft, sensuous melody lines punctuated by mournful trumpet that culminates in an extended Klezmer fueled coda. You journey through the gospel-tinged “Lilly” to the bawdy ragtime of “Johnny,” pausing to marvel at Adams’ exquisite storytelling. Vocally Adams is dynamic on “Saturation Brain” with its Beatles-esque brass jostling with a Latin pulse while she scat-sings with the best on “Rainy Days.”
The sparsely rendered, heartbreaking title track is saved till last. Well, a bar on the moon sounds a cool idea, but this saloon has its share of tumbleweed. “Please don’t make me run away” the Adams persona pleads as she contemplates choosing a path that will define years of her life without knowing if it was the right choice. And so we are brought back full circle to contemplate the life we have, and the one we could have. At least there is some great music here to make all that thought-anxiety worthwhile.
Moon Saloon is out now! Arc Iris is undertaking an extensive tour from September through to November, taking in dates across the USA, UK, and Europe. Details can be found on the Arc Iris Facebook page.
Tony Hardy
Tony’s great passion in life is music and nothing gives him more pleasure than unearthing good, original new music and championing independent musicians. His association with Best New Bands brings great opportunities for this. He also writes for Consequence of Sound and is a judge for Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition.
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