Published on Mar 12, 2003
The music business today is a notoriously difficult environment for pop-rock singer-songwriters not afflicted with the disease of fashion. The name of the game today is lowest common denominator, all the way, which leaves many a superbly talented composer/performer without a record deal. Think about it; Shawn Mullins, Matthew Sweet and Pete Droge have sold millions of units and earned the wide respect of their peers, but they were all without a record deal until they joined forces recently to record an album (due this summer) as The Thorns.
Fortunately, the Internet and the indie/d-i-y underground is able to keep resourceful artists like Bryan Master scratching out a living doing what they do best. Master, a young New York-based singer-songwriter, is possessed of obvious talent and an equally obvious disinclination to make least-common denominator pop music, placing him squarely on the Mullins-Sweet-Droge career track.
On his debut album Lost At Sea, Master's songs are presented like a series of little paintings, each with its own distinct palette and approach. One of the best is "737," a dreamy traveler's reverie that starts out acoustic and builds nicely with rich, precise electric chords. Another standout is the sparkling piano ballad "Bring Out The Stars," an artfully-drawn narrative of an "old-friend-in-town" date that simmers with conflicted subtext ("You bring out the best / You bring out the worst / You're from Venus and I am from Mars / Baby you bring out the stars").
Thinking like a major-label A&R guy, though, I have to zero in on "Reunion Of Sorts," just the kind of witty, catchy, stream-of-consciousness-over-rhythmic-acoustic-guitar gem that landed Shawn Mullins in the Top Ten. Indeed, its steady-building verses, beefed-up electric chorus and well-arranged harmony vocals make comparisons to "Lullabye" almost inevitable. Master shows commendably little interest in sticking to a formula, though; the minute "Reunion" fades out, you dive right into "Meteor(ite)," a sardonic skewering of celebrity culture with an edgy Elvis Costello vibe and numerous musical twists and turns.
Lost At Sea finds Master experimenting quite a bit, as a young artist should. And while his experiments aren't always successful — in particular, I found his vocal affectations on tracks like "Meteor(ite)" and "Californ.I.A." less attractive than his normal, very expressive voice — his stumbles are brief and considerably fewer than you might expect on a 25-year-old's self-published debut. His lyrics in particular show a lot of promise, decorated with striking images like "The baby blue tide on a surfer's silhouette / As the sun's about to set" and acerbic little asides like "I wish I didn't know me better."
The emergence of John Mayer suggests to some that a resurgence of popular interest in singer-songwriters is possible. Personally, I'm skeptical, especially given my view that Mayer's hit album was artistically compromised by its slick production. Regardless of what the future brings for the singer-songwriter genre as a whole, though, this smart, rangy debut marks Bryan Master as a talent to watch.