Xavier Rudd - To Let
Released Independently in 2002
13 Tracks, 58 Minutes
From Australia, Xavier Rudd is a one man live musical performance force: playing didgeridoo, stomp box, percussion, acoustic and lap steel guitars and also singing.
On the cd however, he has some help with drums, bass, cello and backup vocals. Even so, he wrote everything except the last track of course, and he plays most of the music on here.
You can see who else plays, and what they play here, along with the lyrics.
[url]http://www.xavierrudd.com/lyrics_tolet.html[/url]
For an idea of his sound... He can play guitar rather well, but doesn't get too technical, so.. not much as fast or technical as John Butler for those wondering about comparisons. On most of the songs he's playing a lap steel guitar which has quite a soft and warm sound, so theres not quite of the percussiveness of a normal guitar string being picked.
Vocally.. he has a good clean voice, it's a bit smoky at times, and a bit fragile too, but he can and will put a bit of force into it if he wants to.
His didgeridoo playing is rather decent, it's not something I hear in music often, so I cant be sure, but it still sounds pretty good.
Lastly, he is also a dab hand on percussion, pulling off some cool polyrhythms.
There are no individual strong points, I guess all are about equal.. well above average equal that is. After all that, I think his best talent is being able to play multiple instruments/sing at the same time, I have a bootleg in which he is playing Didgeridoo, Guitar and Stompbox all at once, it is mad. Not only that, he can somehow bust out a few quick vocal sounds while playing the didge.
He covers a lot of musical territory while keeping under the general "roots" banner -
The quick slides of Conceal Me and Centeral Avenue, tribal influenced Light The Shade, Timber And Wood and the first half of Introduction. Tense staccato in The 12th Of September and 9 Times A Day. The beautiful ballads Little Chief and Where Do We Fit? And even some energetic roots-dance in To Let. Some ambience and of course the Jimi Hendrix cover/adaptation.
The lyrics... sometimes they are simple.. and some I have no clue what he is on about. When they are obvious, some topics are world issues and the environment... the sort of things roots musicians and fans are into. He also sings about personal highs and lows, stories and a dedication to his baby son. Personally, I like these better than the world stuff.
Every song on here is a good listen, you just have to been in a certain mood for some of them... and I find a lot of the time I'm not in the right mood.
Some songs sound good all the time, and since they are really well written, they are always enjoyable to listen to. The slow songs slow you down, make you think. They are good ones to cleanse your mind and soul to.. or something, they just are. The fast ones get you fired up, these are the cryptic lyric ones, they must be more about the energy than the message.
Overall, it's a rather solid package - great sound, great writing and great musicianship. It doesn't limit itself to roots rock only types, though I still wouldn't think that everyone would like it. Some songs need the right mood to be enjoyed, sadly for me that can be rare, but I have had times where they all sound great, so I know they do work.
8/10
I highly recommend these songs:
Little Chief - a beautiful song written for his son, has a cello and female backing vocals
Where Do We Fit? - a kind of sad ballad
9 Times A Day - a fast one, somewhat trippy lyrics
To Let - high energy, quite dance-like
Conceal Me - quick slide blues
So you can look forward to a free bump sometime in the future.
