Pharis & Jason Romero – Bet On Love
Independent – 1 June 2020 (UK)
Although for both parties I obviously wish we didn’t, but the acclaimed and revered Canadian folk duo Pharis & Jason Romero and my wife Susan and I have a traumatic life event in common. In October 2006, we lost our home in an instant when a late-night fire started by a drunken imbecile’s forgotten cigarette engulfed everything above our Brighton basement apartment. It was a nightmare, ultimately expediting our move to Canada. However, unlike Pharis, my wife had not recently had a baby – her second child – and, unlike the Horsefly, BC-based couple we didn’t instantaneously lose our livelihood. Jason’s boutique banjo-making workshop, the J. Romero Banjo Company, has handcrafted instruments for such as Ricky Skaggs, Martin Simpson and Jerry Douglas and, along with all of their instruments – some being rare and/or irreplaceable – and part of their home, it was reduced to ashes in the June 2016 fire. This event has been well documented, including on FRUK, but it is worth repeating that one can only imagine the crushing stress of those additional factors for a young family and self-contained creative enterprise in such harrowing circumstances. Yet, just as happened with us, the Romeros’ extended community rallied around them in the form of humbling benefit events and practical help and, in the proverbial phoenix-like manner, they dusted themselves off, rebuilding their life and business to emerge from the experience with the most inspired music of their career. Indeed, in terms of the rusticity of 2018’s wonderful, multi-award-winning Sweet Old Religion, it was business as usual for this quietly defiant, stalwart couple, with absolutely no trace of smoke damage, so to speak.
Bet On Love arrives two years on, and it’s another warm, homespun, pure folk gem from the Romeros, who are such naturals within their sonic realm that they possess the knack of making it sound totally effortless. There is such an ease about their sound and tight harmonies and melodies, that it’s as if the songs just land in their laps fully formed, from somewhere divine, ready for them to lay down. If only songwriting was that simple, but in Pharis’ instance it’s interesting to note that, as she stated in 2018, rather than melody or lyrics it is rhythm that’s the key to her songwriting, at least in the first moment of inspiration:
“These days, I find my brain is almost always occupied with writing songs, which is funny because I tend to write songs when I’m out walking, skiing, or doing something rhythmic.”
As illustrated in a short 2018 CBC documentary about the couple’s cottage industry, any given cadence can appear to Pharis in the most unexpected ways, such as when creating a banjo inlay which, whether working with aluminium, wood or brass, has “a rhythm all of its own that I can make use of, whether it’s from a file or a saw!” Jason, on the other hand, is obsessed with and (in his banjos) known for tone. This marriage of rhythm and tone in harmony with brilliant, relaxed musicianship (surely borne of the idyllic rural location in which they live) provides the bedrock on which the two create some really gorgeous material. They’ll be sick of the unavoidable sonic comparisons with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, but while similar dynamics exist there’s a considerable difference between the two couples in that, while the Americans are notoriously fastidious in their approach to making music – it’s been nine years since The Harrow & the Harvest, which arrived eight years after Soul Journey – the Romeros vibe is distinctly and satisfyingly looser, more organic, because between raising their family and running a business I have no doubt they work on their music, purely for pleasure, every single day. Like breathing and eating, it’s what they do, see?
Like its predecessor, the 11-song Bet On Love was recorded live off the floor in their resurrected banjo workshop, once more guided by the in-demand producer/musician Marc Jenkins, with the only additional musicians present being master mandolinist John Reischman and bassist Patrick Metzger. It’s a composed, informal affair, so if you’ve enjoyed any of the couple’s previous five albums, or generally dig soulful roots music written and performed with great skill by couples that are deeply in love, able to rise above unexpected life challenges, and fully focused on their art, you’ll undoubtedly flip for this lovely album.
http://www.pharisandjason.com/releases/bet-on-love
Listen to another track from the album which opens our Folk Show Episode 75.