NetRhythms Magazine - Magic Hour Sailor Songs Review - May, 2008
C.R. Avery - Magic Hour Sailor Songs
This is an extraordinary, and indescribable, record that's come out of nowhere and is set to haunt my consciousness for a very long time to come. It's a remarkable tour de force that starts with a hefty sensory overload, a track that's almost sure to be too much to take in - at least on one listen... the tale of The Boxer Who Just Returned From London is punched out at you (literally, through an edgy self-made beat-box rhythm) with all manner of musical references snucking in there, from hip-hop to Paul Simon; it's a defiant and utterly individual statement, the mark of a true iconoclast, an artist who feels no need to compromise, so you have to take him on his own terms or not at all.
To be fair, this opening track (together with its infinitely more delicate flipside, the beautiful hymnal string-quartet-bedecked closer The Ballad Of Charlie Parker and Patsy Cline) is a musical collaboration between C.R. and Matt Rogers; even so, it's fairly typical of the imaginative leaps that C.R. asks the listener to embrace. But whatever, you mustn't be turned off by this in-yer-face display of maverick creativity. Magic Hour Sailor Songs contains a veritable myriad of genre-busting musical delights, all coated with the authentic grime of street-gospel: from the juggernaut-propelled Americana of Slave Lake Blues, the harmonica-fuelled Hell Of A Hotel Of Harm and the gruelling slow-burn build of Planet Boiler Room, to the sleazy gumbo swamp-grind-shuffle of Down At The Café, the sputtering freewheeling invention of Birdcage, the more gently, compellingly erotic Black Bible Night.
C.R.'s lyrics tend to arise out of his slam-poetry pieces, and the often mercilessly visceral style of his delivery is born of the demands of that genre's audience. It's a shame that the words to the album's ten songs aren't printed in the booklet (instead, this contains some of the man's poetry), for I suspect they would bear closer scrutiny. Just like the poetic canvases of Ginsberg, whose New Stanzas For Amazing Grace forms the album's only non-original. And it will come as no surprise to learn of Tom Waits' oft-voiced deep admiration for C.R.'s talents. In the words of the musical ornithologist, C.R.'s a cultural magpie who's impossible to pigeon-hole! The world needs more like him...
