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Carlos Del Junco- Up and
At Them
As one can guess from his previous album title
"Big boy: some recycled blues and other somewhat related
stuff", it didn't take long for Carlos del Junco to become
a porponent of musical eclectism while staying somewhat true
to a blues background.
With his new release "Up and at 'em", Carlos continues
his journey towards new and various musical territories (for
the harmonica, at least) and showcases some impressive technical
skills without letting the music fall on the side. "Up
and at 'em" offers a good blend of originals and covers,
acoustic or electric in a wide array of styles that most will
enjoy.
At first, the album will seem like a pot pourri
of jazz, funk, rock and other latin influenced numbers. Some
bluesy phrasing or accents blend with all the other influences
to merge everything together. As usual, Carlos never fails to
use the harp in various keys and positions within a given song
in order to continuously bring a new flavour to it. His tone,
smooth vibrato, accurate bends and overblows shine more than
ever and represent a benchmark for the harmonica player.
A more thorough listen, unfortunately, reveals
some limits to this eclectic approach that first pleases the
ear. The wide variety of influences and sounds go against a
certain unity of the record which then sounds more like a collection
of songs than a an actual 'album'. We find ourself browsing
through the songs depending on our mood instead of simply playing
the whole thing. A similar lack of unity can be found in the
orchestration and production of the record where the listener
may go from an acoustic number with minimal orchestration to
an electric number where all the background instruments tend
to somehow bury everything around in a very "busy"
sound. The same contrast can be heard in the playing and sound
of the guitar player Kevin Breit who seems to have as much good
taste when playing acoustic as he has bad taste on most of the
numbers where he plays electric.
The atmosphere of the record only pops its head
towards the the end with the last three numbers that, by themselves,
seem to be the starting point of a whole new album that will
remain unfinished. Unless Carlos decides to treat us with a
new album for each style of music he enjoys, which would likely
be a few hours worth of good music !
Xavier Lanusse -Cazalé
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