Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Nate Farrar: Shell Shocked

192

Nate Farrar: Shell Shocked

By

View read count
Nate Farrar: Shell Shocked
According to the hard-bitten world view of Nate Farrar's Shell Shocked, the only certainty in life is drinking; to be more precise, the only certainty is heavy drinking, the kind that finds you waking up on a stranger's floor and staggering woozily out the door. "If money isn't made for drinkin'," Farrar sings, "what the hell is it for?" His barstool-philosopher fatalism is so finely honed that listeners might be tempted to join him at the bar for a whiskey or three. Luckily, Farrar has married his intoxicated words to intoxicating music.

The thirteen engaging compositions on Shell Shocked are rooted firmly in Mississippi Delta Blues, which functions as a framework for Farrar's existential musings. His brooding lyrics are at turns surreal and all-too-real; he seems to always be leaving some seedy location and heading somewhere equally hopeless, all the while nursing a perpetual bender. When he requests a "one-way ticket into hell" in "Scarsdale," it appears those other places have just been pit stops on the way to his inevitable destination.

Despite Farrar's dissolute sensibility, an undercurrent of droll humor runs throughout, coming to the surface on the rib-tickling "Not a Fool in Love":

Do you have insurance
A healthy relationship with your mother
Do you have any VDs
Or a Nietzschesque jealous brother?

The tunes on Shell Shocked range in mood from forlorn to footstomping. Farrar delivers his vocals with conviction and gutsy authenticity, and he is bolstered by a band of talented Philadelphia-based jazz musicians: Tom Spiker contributes scorching electric guitar solos, embellishing several tracks with some fine pedal steel work; Evan Lipson provides a solid foundation on bass; and drummer Matt Scarano is right on the money, expertly evoking rainfall on "As the Rain Comes Down." The confident production by Stephen Rak portends an auspicious future for the fledgling BwO imprint; everything from the stripped-down studio sound to the DIY cover art reflects an already distinct aesthetic, stark though it may be.

Nate Farrar's debut recording is an uncanny take on the blues that repays replays, but his potential is surely too vast to be confined to one style. Hopefully Shell Shocked is only the first of many projects in a long and adventurous career.

Track Listing

Let Me Down; Moonlight's Just a Memory; Rottin' Playground; Let Me Sleep; Money and Drinkin'; Ballad for a Soldier; Dry Stone Jail; Shell Shocked; 'Til the Last Dream is Gone; Scarsdale; Not a Fool in Love; Tomorrow's a Mess; As the Rain Comes Down.

Personnel

Nate Farrar: guitar, vocals; Evan Lipson: upright bass; Matt Scarano: drums; Tom Spiker: mixing board, electric guitar, pedal steel.

Album information

Title: Shell Shocked | Year Released: 2006 | Record Label: Self Produced

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.