Tulip Frenzy

The Harlem River is not the Big Muddy, it’s not the Colorado, it’s not the Snake.  By the standards of American waterways it’s something of an afterthought, better known for the highway that runs along it than its noble role separating Manhattan from the Bronx. Let’s put it this way: to most people, its most important aspect is that without it, Manhattan would not be an island.  It’s a curious body of water to lend its name to an album as pretty as Kevin Morby’s Harlem River, promising something as pure as the Allagash, though we assure you, you wouldn’t want to drink from it.

But drink deep of this lovely, quiet, sometimes mesmerizing album.  The title track is haunting, and would easily be a hit in that perfect world that so honors nine-minute songs.  “Miles, Miles, Miles” is a piece of Americana stolen from the after-hours of the Blonde On Blonde sessions.  It doesn’t take Cate LeBon to make “Slow Train” that perfect song for a Saturday morning when it rains outside, but it helps.

Morby has a nice voice, and we already knew he was a stellar musician from his work fronting The Babies and playing bass in Woods.  The Babies — with their Pixies antecedents and their Brooklyn barroom roots — are not an obvious reference point for a quiet, soulful album like this.  So it’s like Woods, right?  Uh uh, for whereas the brilliance of that brilliant band is projected like a Titan rocket by the strength of Jeremy Earl’s voice, nothing Kevin Morby does is meant to announce itself.  He’s just made a lovely, quiet album we’ll be playing on those rainy Saturdays, on those long car rides, for a long time to come.

Like Ron Wood before him, long, long ago, Morby’s got his own album to do, and we’re glad he did it.

This entry was posted on November 26, 2013 at 11:05 pm and is filed under Music with tags "Harlem River", Kevin Morby, The Babies, Woods. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.