Click here to [close]

Monday, March 24, 2008

Scott Fields Freetet - Bitter Love Songs (Clean Feed, 2008) ***

With his guitar trio, the Scott Fields Freetet, the guitarist wants to get even for all the problems caused to him by people he trusted and especially the one he loved. The titles of the tracks leave nothing to the imagination : "Yeah, Sure, We Can Still Be Friends, Whatever", "Go Ahead, Take The Furniture, At Least You Helped Pick It Out", "My Love Is Love, Your Love Is Hate", etc, etc. And with that knowledge in mind, you would expect some raw, frustrated, angry or even violent music, or at best some sad blues-drenched wailing. What you get is nothing of the sort, though. You get abstract and free music, nervous and agitated, often sounding like Joe Morris, all in the mid-tempo range, with the exception of the fifth track, "I Was Good Enough For You Until Your Friends Butted In", which is a little slower and closer to a blues in form and feeling. Sebastian Gramss on bass and JoĂŁo Lobo on drums play well and supportive, because Fields is not always easy to follow. Despite many good ideas, the emotional disconnect between theme and form is too big a gap to bridge for me. This soft-toned, gentle, open yet nervous music is the opposite of the destructive anger you would expect. Fields would have done better by presenting is music "as is", leaving more to the listener's imagination, rather than pointing the direction with words. Now, it's just a nice album which will certainly be of interest to modern guitar-players.

Listen and download from eMusic.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Perhaps if your English were better you wouldn't confuse the meaning of "bitter" with " raw, frustrated, angry or even violent."