A Little Night Music
If all goes according to plan on June 11, the sun will begin to set over New York at 8:27 p.m. If all goes according to plan, the sun will begin to set while David Thomas Broughton is carefully adding another layer of sound to a song; maybe a vocal coo or an acoustic guitar melody.
The Lonely Folk figure-troubadour with acoustic guitar communing with his/her spirit-is an archetype now, because it's what lends introspective singer/songwriter-type music its authenticity of feeling. In some respects, David Thomas Broughton's The Complete Guide to Insufficiency recites the myth perfectly: he recorded it in a single take in an English church; he sings about death; he sounds appropriately fragile and beautiful. But he twists the formula by layering and looping everything he plays. He never really sounds alone, but you know that he's only surrounding himself with his own shadows. Essentially, the album is a meditation: it blossoms, it wanders, it plays on itself. He's best when he's the least stereotypically "folky" and most indirect, receding into chorales of his own voice, getting lost in his own sounds.
The New York-based group Doveman is twice as imprecise. Singer Thomas Bartlett croons like a half-awake cupid, stumbling through loose webs of piano, brushed drums and guitar twinkle woven by a rotating group of local improv musicians. Like The Complete Guide to Insufficiency, their debut The Acrobat has a sweet, tingling, raw-nerved quality, sounding best when songs dissipate into quiet spontaneity. Some bands want to shine a light, but Doveman looks more like a cool evening full of fireflies.
On May 28, the grid of Manhattan's architecture framed the sunset perfectly-"Manhattanhenge." The pairing of Broughton and Doveman, while not subject to planetary shift, has similar potential: the structure of the music isn't where the magic lies, it's only a chance for it to happen.