Dave Devine: Played Against The Harmony Of The Real

Dave Devine's Played Against the Harmony of the Real was recorded live in the studio, with bassist Paul McDaniel and percussionist (and sometimes pianist) Matt Mayhall helping pianist, keyboardist, guitarist and vocalist Devine paint dreamy sonic landscapes of various moods and hues. Brilliant engineering by Colin Bricker allows your ears to genuinely feel each musician reaching and feeling their way towards the others as every song evolves and grows.

"Wolf City" and "Sopris" sound inspired by the free, open spaces and wildlife of the western mountains near Devine's Denver (Colorado) homebase. "Wolf City" builds in the tension between Devine's liquid classical guitar and Mayhall's robotic drumming, and eventually takes shape around his repeated guitar phrases but remains weird around the edges. Acoustic and electric keyboards jamming together and with the guitar pump a progressive rock-jazz groove into "Sopris" that also skips along Mayhall's bright sunburst cymbal splashes. (Devine's press sheet provides occasionally hilarious, inscrutable yet accurate one-line track descriptions: "Sopris" is "a glorious mountain near Aspen" and "Wolf City" is "classical guitar therapy.")

Played Against the Harmony seems to grow more focused and "real" as its music rolls on and culminates in a family-based trilogy near the end of the set. In the lovely "Wife Song," glistening cymbals and whispered brush drumming build up a shimmering, suspended sonic wave for Devine's electric blues guitar to surf and glide upon. "Son Song" blasts off with spacy strummed guitar that rockets back and forth in stereo and sets up a grinding conflict with Mayhall's avalanche of power drumming —their two sounds working against instead of with each other—before settling into a more surefooted straight-ahead stride. The trilogy concludes with "Daughter Song," a tender yet spacy Soft Machine jazz-rock groove that Devine's guitar wraps itself around with a unique, protecting and nurturing, jazz-rock sound.

The melancholy guitar with vocal ballad "Vanish" ("Elliott Smith meets Harvest") comes before the last track ("Mondegreen"), but a track so sadly beautiful really should have closed this set.

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