Tom Cooney - Presque Vu (Album)
The man and his acoustic guitar. The solitude. The loneliness. All throughout time (okay, well over the past 100 years) it’s had its part in popular music. Robert Johnson sold his soul for it. Bob Dylan helped change the world with it. Elliott Smith made it cool to sit in your room alone drinking under the guise of ‘creating’ (god bless him).
Today it’s become almost a cliché. Anyone with an acoustic guitar is either:
a) Stoned out of their mind and talking about the environment.
b) Drunk out of their mind and talking about how much they hate themselves.
c) Trying to get girls (or guys).*
Presque Vu, Tom Cooney’s debut album (and on a label he created no less) continues the ‘sad man’ cliché with eleven songs that sparkle with unique guitar work and a disposition that verges on distraught. Not quite stereotypical, it’s a mix of the wandering and lonesome, each carrying a sparse sense of abandonment. There’s always something wrong, but Cooney plays it coy, his ethereal voice mixing with the earthy guitar to create an uneasy atmosphere. And he milks it for all it’s worth, offering tracks were people that can’t break out of themselves.
Cooney’s voice has a distinctive waver. It’s not strong but it has an endearing Josh Ritter-type quality and his bare arrangements and scant lyricism play to it’s strength
On Presque Vu the guitar is the star. The bass notes the heavy, always lurking in the background, while the lower notes handle the melody, like tiny air bubbles fighting to the surface. Many of the arrangements are sparse, with Cooney’s flawless technique giving off shades of M.Ward’s playing. When there are other instruments, they fade into the background- whether that’s a conscious decision or a case of simply not noticing it over Cooney’s guitar is up for debate. Sadness? is a rolling, faster song where the melody flickers in and out like a bad TV reception as Cooney ponders the sadness in death. Is there a Sadness in suicide? he asks, sounding just as lost for answers as everyone else.
The albums showcase is Giulia, as Cooney breaks out of his shell with straightforward lyrics with a story of taking a loved ones troubles as your own. Cooney’s voice and his fingerpicked guitar weave in and out, both sharing the melody with the other.
Presque View isn’t doing anything new with genres, ability or ingredients, but songs like the spiritually wandering Mountains in the Sky are gorgeous and polished odes to longing and sadness.
*Okay, so I’m being a little facetious.
