Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Sylvie
We discovered this delightful, gentle album by chance, and it confused us.
A friend passed on one of those cover-mount compilation CDs which came with an English music monthly late last year.
As we heard it, one of the songs was called Sylvie by someone called Sylvie (but it was a male singer) from the album entitled Sylvie, although the song itself was an old one written by Iain (Fairport Convention) Matthews.
It was a gorgeously languid slice of pedal-steel country-rock with soft horns and we kept hitting repeat play in the car. Lines like “warm sunny days in the season” just captured a cool but clear day.
It was obviously time to find out more about Sylvie (The band? The man? The song? The album?) and a strange story unfolded.
Sylvie is apparently the project of Ben Schwab who found his father John's abandoned Seventies recordings, among them his dad's version of the Matthews' song Sylvie.
Inspired by the song and the sound, Ben created this album where he steps back to let singer Sam Burton take the lead on Sylvie and Stealing Time,and the wonderful Marina Allen on Falls On Me (“autumn leaves are fallin' like the rain”) and Further Down the Road.
His father John comes in for Ben's equally lovely Rosaline with a guitar part recalling George Harrison's solo-era chiming slide.
According to bandcamp the album was “recorded in a garage in Silverlake, CA” so it is a real labour of love between father and son, both their voices heard on a phone call over the acoustic instrumental part which opens 50/50.
A short album (about 30 minutes) of unhurried, slightly pastoral and lightly psychedelic country with strings, pedal steel, piano . . . and a lot of love.
Slow summer days captured in soft songs.
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You can hear this album at bandcamp here
johnF - Jan 30, 2023
I listened to that same UNCUT CD recently (late as usual). My first thoughts when hearing this track was, I know this from somewhere and it sounds very similar to the original. I hadn't heard it for so long but on checking the credits, I realised it was from Later that Same Year by Matthews Southern Comfort from 1970. My copy also contains their version of Woodstock but that seems to be a USA pressing but the UK pressing don't. Odd really because I bought it in England in about 1972.
SaveOur thoughts are with those suffering in the rain damaged areas around NZ. As you say, one gets attached to material items like vinyl, having carefully chosen each and every record in our collection.
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