Jordan Galland - Airbrush

Jordan Galland (based in New York), from the band Dopo Yume, and who has previously worked with Mark Ronson, Daniel Merriweather, and Sean Lennon, has recently released his first solo album: Airbrush.

Taking cues from Leonard Cohen and Francoise Hardy, in terms of poetically-inspired songwriting and a light, dreamy air, respectively, Galland has crafted a work of soundtrack-esque beauty in Airbrush (not totally surprising, as he is also a film-maker!), described in the press release as "a spooky and intimate sound one might find on their most treasured b-side".

Opener "They Always Come Back" (see video at the end of this post) starts things off on a melancholy note, albeit sweetly, and beginning the theme for the orchestral sound which continues through the rest of the album (with additional instrumentation provided by Dopo Yume member David Muller, and Sam Oats). "This Close" breezes by with a crossover-classical / French pop-inspired flair, while "Everyone Else is Boring" (download here!), my personal fav, is more up-tempo, though still doused in a rainy gloom, a theme that "Green Umbrella" revisits towards the album's end .

"The Prisoner" and "Knows Nothin" are brimming with a fuller singer-songwriter vibe. Jazzy title-track "Airbrush" serves as a commentary on the not-what-they-seem image of popular culture, with lines like: "And if you like that boy you see / Or see a girl you want to be / I'm just reminding you / That the preview is better than the movie".

The second half of the album winds down to a mellower vibe: the tinged-with-sadness "When the Girl Is Lying", acoustically driven "Easy & Impossible", and "Circles" as a sort of positive flip-side, musically, of "Airbrush". "Toy Telephone" recounts the tale of a man trying to reach his girl-friend in an apologetic mood, but receives no response from her on the other end, which he equates to "talkin' into a toy telephone". "Jessica" turns the latter half of the album's introspective mood inside-out, closing Airbrush full circle- a highly recommended release from an especially talented fellow!

Jordan Galland - Official Site | on MySpace Music