“Mojave” is full of ballads and songs about poor decisions, bad people, and real consequences –It’s risky Gothic Country not meant for the faint of heart.
A compilation of 10 songs and almost 35 minutes of modern beats, organic and electronic instruments, meaning to represent the creaking, ruined, rundown pulse of abandoned buildings littering today’s Mojave desert.
There are road trip like songs, there are eerie tracks, and there are Blues-infused extravagant tunes. Meanwhile, the vocals play around with the composition of every piece to fit each mood.
The first track, “Like A House With Broken Windows,” is probably the ‘sweetest’ song of the whole album, with an easy-going singing and melodies. But, as the song “Are They Digging Your Grave? (or are they digging mine?)” plays out, the vocals are bold, deep and brassy, pronouncing each word slowly and rounded. Then, during “You Don’t See Me (Jimmy Crack Corn)”, the album’s fifth song, the vocals give ghoulish goosebumps.
“Mojave features over a dozen instruments and found percussion (bath tubs, pots, pans, and big sticks) recorded in quarantine over the last 18 months. It’s a labour of love and fear.” –Stuart Pearson.
While still steeped in the dusty American west, there are hints of the Decemberists, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen thrown in a bucket with ghosts of the 1800s.
The instrumentation and composition are hauntingly memorable. Each track plays its own rhythm as water flows down a river.
Although the melodies give away hints of melancholic loneliness, they actually flow with a mystical authority that reflects the beauty of sometimes being non-conformist with what life throws at you.
The LA-based artist repeats the route of Country/ Folk music to create his second album, which was released on Halloween last year, following the same pattern of his previous Dark Americana album,
Mojave’s songs would easily match the mood in current TV shows like “Peaky Blinders”, “Black Mirror”, or “The Man in the High Castle”.
The work behind the album reflects on every note played and every word sung. Every title is different from the rest, promising a journey of surprises, sensations and unknown, deep emotions boiling out as the tracks play along.
