Cameron Knowler – Places of Consequence
American Dreams – 16 July 2021
Cameron Knowler‘s first full-length solo album, coming only a few months after Anticipation with Eli Winter, could easily be mistaken as a soundtrack project, probably for a Wim Wenders or Kelly Reichardt film. Fourteen unhurried yet concise vignettes take up just thirty-six minutes and manage to sound quietly adventurous and unusual. Cameron’s background in jazz comes across from the off with the warm pickings of I’m an Old Cowhand, a lovely little narrative that subtly stops and starts and twists and turns. Don Bishop is in a similar vein but sounds more like leisurely journey music, although both tunes would nicely play out the quiet travelling scenes of a Western film.
A different sound entirely are miniatures like Supertone Biome, an echoey minute and a half of slow pulsing electric guitar picking, with pleasing and slightly random bass notes offsetting the piece. More diminutive and still sparer is Atelier de Stein, a minute-long, slowly strummed electric guitar chord that functions more as an interlude than a whole track. These little electric nuggets pepper the set and are ace. The swagger and drawl of the lo-fi slide tune Motoring Addiction is fun but with an underlying sense of menace. At the same time, Second Train to Almogordo contains over-driven electric notes slowly played to create a spacious air of melancholy resignation. Cameron has a natural talent for expressing much in a short amount of time; these songs feel unhurried and full of character, but none come close to two minutes.
A broader song is the banjo led centrepiece Cat Spring, coming in at six minutes, well over double the average track length on the album. This rich and quietly epic piece uses a blend of delicately and more firmly plucked guitar and banjo strings to vary the mood of the music as it plays out until the guitar takes over for a solo climax. Lone Prairie, the other banjo tune here, plays it more traditionally and is reminiscent of Adam Hurt’s version of John Riley the Shepherd, another strong and beautifully restrained banjo melody.
Closing song Kuyina is another miniature, this one taken from an accordion piece by Congolese musician Camille Feruzi and played simply on the acoustic guitar. This one shows the confidence of Cameron’s playing perhaps more than any other on Places of Consequence in that he manages to cram plenty of emotion and chutzpah into something as simple as a single string bend. He also doesn’t need to repeat the piece, instead deciding to end it before the two-minute mark. Like the rest of this assured album, the unassuming nature of the tune and Cameron’s playing gives the music a certain charm and undeniable power.
Released on American Dreams on July 16th, pre-order via Bandcamp: https://cameronknowler.bandcamp.com/album/places-of-consequence
Photo Credit: Laura Lee Blackburn
