Chrisopher Blue

Room Tones

(Sarathan)

Record Review by Amber Henson

With how difficult Chrisopher Blue’s life has been for the past few years, it’s amazing that his new album Room Tones is as upbeat as it is. This tortured soul has endured homelessness, evil labels, and a run-in with the law, but has come up with a CD that sounds like it was less inspired by these events, and more inspired by the sounds that emanate from a jazzy drum setup.

Blue’s voice is a little like Luke Doucet’s, except smokier and lower, with a few more hums added in for good measure. He sounds like he’s been through it all and come out the other side a little worse for the wear, but happy to have gone on the journey.

Many of his lyrics seem to be about women who have tortured him, in every sense of the word. “I wish you would stay, but you’re the one who got away,” and “After all I’ve heard you say, after all I’ve heard you do, what am I supposed to think, what am I supposed to do?” give us a sense of a man who really is trying to understand—but isn’t getting any help from the ‘fairer’ sex. Perhaps it’s the syntax of his sentences, or the gentle way in which he sings them, but everything comes out sounding just so honest, so honest it hurts. Saying words like “I’ve never known such love,” is never easy; saying it on an album that will be distributed is, I’m sure, worse. But he seems to weather it.

Room Tones is very full of drums, as I said before. The brush drum is an oft-used instrument, and it lends a certain feeling of floating through the music that Blue adds to with his lyrics. His album is a good example of how to build tension through sound, but also knows when to release that tension.