DAVID ALLRED - The Transition

“The Transition” is the Canadian musician's fifth solo album, which many have mistakenly greeted as a debut. His discography should also include the successful collaboration with Find The Ways, a joint project with Peter Broderick that earned him a place on the roster of the prestigious Erased Tapes, a label that tends to be more generous toward avant-garde or electronic-experimental sounds than singer-songwriter fare. Still, David Allred is an unconventional songwriter, in some ways akin to the estranged, fragile poetic world of Eric Chenaux.

“The Transition” is a sober, almost wintry record, yet luminous and comforting. It may sound marginal to many, partly because of the inevitable artistic echoes that risk dimming its charm, but there is a genuine poetics here that grows deeper with every listen, winning over even the skeptics.

Like painters who use warm, enveloping colors to highlight a few evanescent figures, David Allred keeps the exuberance of his instruments in check, creating evocative sonic landscapes in which strings, piano, synths, guitar, balalaika, percussion and bass alternate, guided by the author's captivating voice.

Peter Broderick is tasked with framing two of the densest melodies with fine blends of modern and classical: synths, strings and winds chase the languid, dreamy vocals of “Scoop Troop” and the icy, nostalgia-laden minimalism of “The Transition”, brushing against the majesty of full orchestral sound.

The force of imagination lends the same depth to the barer episodes, such as the almost theatrical piano-and-voice duet of “Randy And Susan” and the potential film score for keyboards and trumpet that is “For Catherine E. Coulson” (dedicated to the actress known to fans of “Twin Peaks“, who died in 2015).

That David Allred's musical DNA leans closer to songwriting is evident in the delicate sentimental fresco of “The Mirror Of Time” and in the small masterpiece of “The Garden”, which blends a cappella and choral writing in the manner of the Beach Boys, and which previewed the album's release.

The heartfelt tribute to label mates Penguin Café in “For The Penguins” briefly eases the album's melancholic mood, but it is only an interlude before the somber, anguished notes of “Poet Tree” and the bitter reflections of “For Only All” restore the author's meditations on the transience of life and the acceptance of change, which does not always stem from our own choices.

Behind the poetic and compassionate tone of David Allred's music lies a world of profound loneliness: that of the residents of the care home where the musician works, bitter and painful stories that, for the author, should make us reflect on the fragility of our own being.

We will all be old one day

so we should start writing a to-do list.

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17/11/2018