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| photo by Elisabeth Fuschia |
While most people are probably familiar with Portland, Maine based singer/songwriter Nat Baldwin as a member of Dirty Projectors, it actually wasn't until I had heard "Weights" and sought out his album People Changes that I realized that was the case. And in actually, it was Lands & Peoples and the fact that they had played a show with Baldwin that brought him to my attention. And through the years, Nat Baldwin has continued to deliver after that initial surprise. Though he's released more traditional singer/songwriter records, Baldwin is also a gifted improviser and last year he released a trilogy of records entitled Autonomia wherein he explores more experimental forms of music making. And as if that wasn't enough for Baldwin, this year he announced the release of another collection of songs in the form of the Common Currents EP.
Nearly eight years after In The Hollows, Baldwin's last songwriting effort, "All We Want Is Everything", the album opener and opening track arrives with something to say as Baldwin transmutes his politics into song. Despite the solitude of recording solo bass in the empty Apohadion Theater in Portland, there is a warmth in Baldwin's delivery that manages to subsume the sparseness of its creation. As Baldwin sings of communal action transforming the present, his mellifluous vocals coax visions of bright futures and slain masters. It's equal parts abstract work-song and protest music: a call to action to both envision the future of your dreams and mold it into being. While not everyone has Baldwin's vocal prowess, it's easily a song you can hum or whistle as you go door to door informing neighbors of the latest propositions in your local elections and I can envision Baldwin doing just that.
Nat Baldwin's tenth solo album Common Currents is out July 9th on Dear Life Records, you can pre-order the record now.