Friday 9 July 2010

M S Thomason/Herself Split EP

M S Thomason is one of our most admired local performers, specialising in his own style of darkest depths of despair, fragile and beautiful acoustica, this new EP (split with Herself) features two new tracks from the singer/songwriter. Thankfully the tracks do not depart too radically from Thomason's fantastic debut LP 'I Am Your Son'. 'The Pines' kicks things off, with a sparse and minor acoustic guitar part, and a weeping viola, punctuating the breathy, harmonising vocals before building with a McCartney-esque bass line and reverb laden guitar and piano parts. As tender and broken as Elliot Smith, and equally dark in places, these new offerings cement Thomason's repuatation as one of the most gifted and powerful songwriters in the area. A seemingly unusal collaboration, as Herself is the stage name of Gioele Valenti, an Italian musician from Palermo. Unusual that is geographically, but musically there is much in common here. The Herself offerings are every bit as dark, atmospheric and haunting as Thomason's, at once gothic and romantic. 'Violence Is For Leaders' is one of the stand-out tracks on this record, initially like an unplugged Nirvana, with a softer and sweeter vocal part, weaving its way around the song which ends up sounding more like Idaho. Another strong offering all in all, from two very talented, and to much lesser and greater extents, 'local' artists.

For more info check out M S Thomason on Myspace 
and Herself on Myspace

1 comment:

  1. Hello,

    this is Herself, and I appreciated your kind review, mate:)

    If you'd like to listen to my new stuff (coming in April), it would be great.
    My contact: www.herself.altervista.org

    Cheers

    g

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