First Listen: Josh Grabert “The Shed Sessions”
I dig music that isn’t perfect by design. Things that happen off the cuff. Recording sessions that are spontaneous or happen at a friend’s place without a plan for it. Josh Grabert’s The Shed Sessions has just that vibe. It is stripped down and untreated. Natural. It feels a lot like he is playing a live show, just to a room. The audience is the mic in front of his face and the ‘shed walls’ that the recording was done in. Somewhat compressed and enclosed feeling, it takes on the vibe of locking yourself away during a long cold winter with some tape and the time and love to make a record for the pure reason of making music.
‘Back in 15 Minutes’ gives the singer’s voice flavors of Jeff Buckley. A heavy acoustic guitar and his voice singing out. It then breaks with an electric guitar ringing out behind Grabert singing empassioned and loud in comparison to the rest of the song. Again, really taking on this very live feel and vibe compress with a kind of 4 track tape basement feel to it. Genuine and honest. ‘It’s a Feeling’ again hints on that Buckley sound in some ways. Josh relies on very repeated guitar sounds, I mean chord patterns of course are “repeated”, but the bouncing feeling back and forth between two chords in the verse becomes less of the focus and allows you to hone in on his story songs and voice. A slow drone almost, filling the void, but not the important piece of the arrangement. The break in “Happy Driver” isn’t all too flourished, but shows the writers guitar work and bluesier side. There is a simplified John Butler attitude and color in his playing that I enjoy.
The Shed Sessions aren’t the most polished or pretty collection of tunes, but they have a lot of heart and realness. By design that nature exposes a songwriter and I think that is something that an audience can really tap into and see as something distinctive. Something for people to bite into and get a taste of the songs, rather than how many tracks can be added to a tune and how polished the vocal sounds can get. That, I can dig.
