:: Barry Adamson - Back To The Cat

Barry Adamson

Barry Adamson’s career would ignite envy in almost any fledgling artist. Indeed, with a list of credentials that span from his work with David Lynch to his most notable place as an original Bad Seed, it’s easy to see why. Since his first solo release in 1989, Adamson has forged a reputation as a highly skilled composer and his latest effort, ‘Back To The Cat’ is no exception. Released on Adamson’s record label, Central Control, this album rollicks through an exquisite collection of songs about love and misery in which Adamson contemplates the afflictions of the modern world. This may sound cliché in a sentence, however, placed into a musical context and fused with everything from dark, acid-drenched jazz to swinging blues to deep soul and circus funk, the end result is quite remarkable. ‘Straight Till Sunrise’ gives a tilt of the hat to Burt Bacharach with chirpy horns and walking bass lines while the brassy instrumental of ‘The Shadow Of Death Hotel’ lends itself to a funky jam. Throughout the ten tracks, there are songs smothered in psychedelic horns, jazzy harmonies and evocative melodies and although some arrangements seem slightly awkward and even verge on ludicrously ostentatious, you get the sense that Adamson intended it that way.