JERRY DAVID DECICCA
New Shadows
A country-folk auteur embraces synthesisers and sequencers.
By Stephen Deusner
BWATUE/THREE LOBED
8/10
DECICCA isn’t technically a blues musician, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the blues real bad. A low-thrum alienation suffuses his squirrelly new solo record, New Shadows, which alternates between humour and pathos, wry observations and existential plaints. In several songs he sits around feeling lost. In others, he wanders about feeling lost. On aphilosophical inquiry about the nature of creativity called “Sing”, he simply strums his guitar and weeps. But he’s learned to chuckle at such intense angst: “These blues got me by the short hairs”, he declares on “These Blues”, sounding wrung out yet punchy. “These blues are taking over my yard”.
An Ohio native so obsessed with Texas music that he moved to the small town of Bulverde, located just north of San Antonio and renowned as ahub for Lone Star rock, DeCicca is amaster at conjuring bluesy scenes and moods in just a few short lines. Rather than mimic aparticular style or scene, he just makes his own traditions as he goes. And New Shadows is his wildest interpretation yet. He downplays the guitar as alead instrument, despite it forming the foundation of his sound as both a solo artist and as the frontman for The Black Swans. In its place are sequencers and keyboards, abank of vintage gear that’s less outlaw country and more like an early Lindsey Buckingham solo record.
SLEEVE NOTES
1 New Shadows
2 Manzanita Bay
3 Lost Days
4 Angelina
5 These Blues
6 When You
Needed My Help
7 97 Nights
8 Walking Stick
9 Sing
10 Ivory Tower
Produced by: Don Cento, Jerry David DeCicca
Personnel includes: Jerry David DeCicca (vocals, guitar), Don Cento (drum programming, synthesizers, guitars, horn arrangements), David Hidalgo (guitar, acoustic synth-guitar), Steve Berlin (baritone saxophone), Jeff Parker (guitar), James Brandon Lewis (tenor saxophone), Aquiles Navarro (trumpet), Brian Harnetty (piano), Glenn Fukunaga (double bass, electric bass), Rosali Middleman (backing vocals), Sean Harvey (percussion, marimba), Art Hays (clarinet), Brian Donohoe (tenor saxophone), Michael St. Clair (trombone), Sam Howden (trumpet), Penny Johnston (distressed infant noises)