Paul Duncan - To an Ambient Hollywood
(Home Tapes)
From Savannah, not Athens, Paul Duncan continues Georgia's strong indie-pop tradition with a homemade bone of soft, supple organic sounds. Taking more influence from electronic, progressive music like Brian Eno and Talk Talk than psychedelic pop such as the Elephant 6 crew, Duncan comes off like a more ADD, less precise The Sea and Cake or High Llamas (when he's at his best). The opening two songs hit that vibe strongly, merging Grubbs-like acoustic guitar pluck, keyboards, and prominent live drumming. Instrumental leadoff "1 In 22" is upbeat and exciting, creating a propulsive groove from a warbly, affected keyboard progression. A hyperactive bass track gets a little distracting, but some graphic equalizing fixes that easy enough. "Ghost Of a Memory" is prettier, and adds Duncan's soft, breathy voice, singing "you must watch yourself around me." While Duncan's music never becomes objectionable, sometimes he loses focus like on "Swam an Ocean" which wobbles back and forth like a sea shanty with a three-chord violin riff. With such a more minimal and simple arrangement, Duncan's voice and words aren't strong enough to carry the song. Songs like that are forgivable given the great home production job on tracks like "Has-Been Actor." Robin Beauchamp provides a trumpet track to accompany Duncan's pickwork, and Duncan multitracks Beauchamp's playing to great effect. While Spaceheads is an easy reference point due to the merger of trumpets and effects, these are pop songs, mostly, and Duncan never loses sight of that, just creating layers to the song, not trying to wow us with something high-tech. While To an Ambient Hollywood is an enjoyable melting pot of pop songs with more avant garde styles and sounds, Duncan's strengths seem to lie more in his ability to produce than songwriting. The layering to the recording and the tone of the instruments is what caught my ear first, and looking past that to the songs finds something simpler and decent but a bit less impressive.
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