Photo: Samantha Capatti Bezerra
Info: REMY is delighted to present an exclusive premiere stream of the sophomore solo album, Águas, by Wexford artist Johnny Fox which officially releases on the 5th of October. Águas will see its live launch take place this Friday, 28th September, at Murphy's Barn in Wexford alongside fellow local act Cursed Murphy's single 'Foxhole Prayer' (which is out today). This will be the only time that Águas will be performed live, and the opening night of a new set of live sessions in the South-East called Foxhole Sessions. Águas is the sister album of Fox's 2016 debut Cais, an immense collection of songs which sat comfortably as one of REMY's top 5 Irish LP's that year. Once again, Fox takes the Portuguese lyrics of his wife Samantha and puts them to music, just as the pair did with Cais when living in São Paulo at the time it was written.
The Ger Fox Sailing and former The River Fane man explains the background to the latest album as follows;
"Samantha was always writing, more so it seemed when she was sad. I would regularly ask her to show me what was on the page, but she would always refuse. So, one day I asked her if she would show me what she had written, if I made an album from the words. From there, came 16 songs, which would go on to form the basis of both ‘Cais’ (Translation: 'Pier' or 'Platform') and its sister record, the forthcoming, ‘Águas’ (Translation: 'Waters').
Sometime in 2016, after what had been an entirely solitary process recording 'Cais', I was beginning plans for the album’s sequel and was keen to try something different; enter Basciville brothers (bassist Cillian and drummer Lorcan Byrne) and their long time bandmate and general guitar hero Chris Colloton, who were - very thankfully - ready and willing to get on board to see what they could bring to the table.
Johnny Fox - 'Bonita Serena' from the album 'Cais'
Some time elapsed, during which I recorded and released an album with Ger Fox Sailing, and earlier this year, I revisited the tracks and got to work adding some overdubs and applying the finishing touches – a decent layer of polish was applied but the rawness and the nervous energy of the original recordings were to remain.
To me, the tunes ebb and flow in ways that I could never have predicted, and the album, both in its formation and as a finished piece, offers a reassuring reminder of the power of letting go and the potential of the collaborative spirit."
The unrelenting beauty of Cais (see 'Bonita Serena' above) still ripples strongly to Águas, with opening track 'Algas Marinhas' acting like a soft bridge between the two. The maritime themes also present once again (cais = pier, águas - waters, algas marinhas = seaweed etc.). Once we've settled into that familiar space however, Fox hints at new movements we can expect from the remainder of the album. The final 1:15 of the track like a seagull caught in the gust with a backdrop of Floydian electric guitars.
'Peixe Cavalo' confirms that this is definitely not going to be merely Cais II, operatic lo-fi rock accentuated beautifully by additional violin, and the subtle barely audible distorted guitar chugging begin to build a mystique that is initially hard to get your head around, but it's okay to just sit in wonder.
In a recent review of lead single 'Ar Fresco' we noted; "The track radiates a warm glow right from the very beginning, and Fox's vocal is the balm to an unforgiving hot summer's day. It's seriously impressive how the instrumentation sounds so fulsome, almost as if a full orchestra were present, the real kick takes hold at 2:28, it's so mellow it's almost psychedelic as we dive head first into cool jazz territory, damn that rhythm and percussion is tasty. It's like a song in three parts, as the final third sees the clarinet enters the fray and whisks us out of this world and into the next." Looking back only three weeks ago, 'Ar Fresco' didn't really prepare me for the rest of the LP, although the album flows so steadily, one of the major attractions for me is how the stories behind each song are distinctly allowed live within their own worlds as well as being part of a wider universe of warm imagery.
'Cafe Com Leite' is effortlessly disarming, what a fine introduction to someone who is curious about traditional Brazilian folk and bossa nova (start with any of the Gilberto's - João, Astrud, Bebel or the legendary Caetano Veloso), jazz guitar at 3:15 is a peach and a half too. If you want to drop off the edge of the world look no further than sixth track 'Equilibrio', Fox displaying again why he is a master of the tender vocal and sounds. I think the best way to describe moments like this is to imagine the guitar and voice like two hands clasped around a wax heart, slowly melting it away with their warmth, but it's not that there's nothing left at the end, it's just replaced with a serene happiness.
The balance of shifting between stripped-down acoustic to electric guitar, however unobtrusive, works very well on Águas, and highlights the valuable contribution the rest of the band make to this album, I'm sure Fox will agree it would not have become something he was truly happy with without them, and this sense is best summed up with the delicateness of 'Por Dentro' and its perfectly executed restraint. Incidentally, it is also the only moment on the album where a bit of darkness encroaches on the light.
Fox signs-off with the wandering 'Navegadora', a travel-weary troubadour contemplating the journey from the past to the future whilst being oblivious of the present. It comes back to what I mentioned earlier about each track being it's own story, making Águas more a collection of short stories that Fox has inter-twined expertly, than a singularly themed novella. Whilst Cais was a timeless piece of wonder that I will always come back to, Águas somehow sees Johnny Fox surpass it, and in a noticeable way, not just mere 'progression' as a song-writer. In a Utopian version of the music world, both albums would be dissected and analysed by critics as extremely important pieces of work which deserve a certain reverence, I won't be giving hope that day may actually come to pass.
'Águas' by Johnny Fox will be released on all platforms and CD on the 5th of October.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnnyFoxMusicPage/
Bandcamp: https://johnnyfox.bandcamp.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5HSvWi0YFcpkElcyvE8xqA?si=J4Sx-sA7RsSx2fJI588qJw
