Jason McMahon – Odd West
Shinkoyo – 31 January 2020
A description of Jason McMahon’s guitar playing before Odd West would not include the phrase ‘Folk Music’. It simply wasn’t a part of the vocabulary for this guitarist focused on the music of Skeletons, its associated bands and the world of experimental MIDI-triggered performance. Yet in 2017, the touring had stopped and his focus turned to creating music for a family reunion in Colorado. Just to make things more challenging, McMahon decided to use an unfamiliar tuning, and learn finger-picking.
Throughout 2018 at four weddings, including his own, the songs that would become Odd West developed becoming “experimental music written for traditional family gatherings.” iTunes categorizes the album as Avant Americana, focusing on the blend of sounds incorporating traditional guitar in what appear to be relatively normal frameworks.
Yet things aren’t always what they seem. The opening to Old Career In An Old Town begins with a single downward strum sustained while keyboards fill building to a moment of silence before the guitar re-enters. There are layers to the song making one realize that within what appears to be the comparatively simple confines of the music, layers of shading add depth to the whole. Vocals, when they appear on songs like How I Became Water tend to be pushed back in the mix used to create another shade adding to the proceedings.
Recorded at Daniel Schlett’s Strange Weather in New York, McMahon mentions, “I chose the hand percussion on the album, snaps on Sky and claps on If It Rhymes, It’s True because I wanted to take advantage of the fact that I was recording the album in an amazing studio and that kind of live, detailed percussion would sound incredible.” Yet there is so much more going on in If It Rhymes, It’s True with wordless vocals, acoustic bass, acoustic guitar and piano. McMahon even admits that he has created a “dream language” that sounded like words but really wasn’t, lending to a feeling of “almost hearing, just barely-but-not-quite-understanding.“
The opening moments of the final track, Never Stop Exploding has moments where the sound turns slightly sinister. Featuring the album’s only electric guitar solo during the song’s closing moments, the song fades out as the improvisation begins to hit full force bringing a sense of dissonance to what has been a richly detailed dance.
Odd West is an album that charms listeners rather than bludgeoning them into submission. New leaves of sound open themselves up to listeners upon repeated playing of the album. The subtlety of Jason McMahon’s music details a master class from an artist who revels in his craft.
Pre-Order Odd West via Bandcamp
Photo Credit: Kristina Loggia