Bedroom Community

The songs on "All is Well," Sam Amidon’s second album, are – as those on his 2007 debut “But this Chicken proved false hearted” – based on traditional tunes; yet instead of making this an occasion to connect to (supposedly) authentic forms of music or to stage the unearthing of musical roots, Amidon, his collaborator Nico Muhly and the producer Valgeir Sigurðsson take a clever turn by adding a slightly artificial quality to the arrangements. This artificiality is of a subtle, sophisticated kind, though, and Amidon doesn’t seem to be concerned with the notion of creating ostensibly ‘inauthentic’ music (as, say, The Flying Lizards’ “Top Ten” album) at all. There is not only warmth, but actually a strong lyrical and emotional dimension to the music, yet at the same time it always stays a little reserved, neither trying itself at large expressive gestures nor at evocations of intimacy.

Guitar and voice form the basis of the songs, which are completed with delicate wind, brass and string arrangements and some carefully integrated electronics, a hushed rhythm here or an ephemeral detail there. These additional elements suggest a vaguely cinematic atmosphere and just as in a good movie they introduce a notion of drama without being pathetic. In fact, it seems that it is this particular atmosphere that most appropriately marks the sensibilities that unfold with the changing moods and tempers of the album’s ten songs. And when Amidon sings the short line “All is Well” in the closing piece, slowly repeating the words over and over again, I almost want to believe him, at least until I realize that the song is over and I have to get up to put a new disc in the player.

Magnus Schaefer