Kelvin Roy: Inner Space

Approachability isn’t a concern with Kelvin Roy’s music. All compositions and arrangements are – with a couple of exceptions where Nigel Gavin collaborates – his. Extremely familiar sounding harmonic and melodic tracks, however, coil enough insinuated gentle statements throughout to propel the listening up toward fresh peaks.

Love is the conceptual vocalized and affecting theme, operating within an elusive musical sense of inner beings engaged in hard-to-pin-down searches for affection. The instrumentation, ranging from maraca colors to the rarely heard possibilities of the bass trumpet – of which not enough is featured – keeps one’s ears perked. The mood, tension and releases, breaks and dominant passages shoot from popular music, as evidenced in the opener that could pass as a TV show theme. Roy vocalizes a muted groove laden “Love Letter” with a cool beat and multiple sonic sparkles. “Junk In My Mailbox” is drippy and groovy. “Dream” has funk and the closer is lounge straight ahead jazz.

Roy has conversational overtones in his singing and playing, with mellowness and relaxed manners that resemble his tone and touch on bass trumpet. The lyrics are unchallenging yet effective. All around, a likeable recording.

Visit Kelvin Roy on the web.