Stephen Lomas
Mermaids
© 2000 Stephen Lomas (634479023323)
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Here's your funk & swagger & lots of it - rhythmic, edgy & percussive with sometimes the delicate touch of traditional music, just so you can catch your breath. Here you'll be reminded of The Pogues, Dire Straits, Martin Simpson & Bob Dylan.
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Inhabiting a realm between Dylan at his moodiest, The Pogues at their jumpin'est & Ry Cooder at his pickin'est, Stephen Lomas has produced a coherent & engaging CD of original songs & instrumentals.
Long time ex-pat & recent re-pat Australian, Lomas recorded this offering in California in 1999. It is undeniably Australian in character & subject with themes including Anzac Day & the Southern Cross. There is often an Irish lilt to his easy finger style guitar playing that shifts deftly into the familiar strains of Click Go the Shears & Moreton Bay. It is in his songs such as the opener No Night For Lovers & Wigram Road that Lomas drifts into a Dylanesque landscape of image & imagination, inhabiting a zone that is at times edgy & brooding with instrumentation echoing the organ/guitar arrangements of The Band in their prime.
These darker moods are lightened by tracks such as Up All Night, Mermaids & Spinnin' that hop along at a bright & lively pace on a road somewhere between the Alice & Anaheim. Lomas also delivers beautifully rendered solo guitar interpretations of traditional Celtic Australian classics such as Moreton Bay & a medley of traditional tunes dubbed Under the Southern Cross. Exhibiting a crisp, lyrical style, he captures the melancholy mood of these pieces, creating space in & around his playing in which to set his gentle phrasing adrift.
All You Sinners shifts from a brooding introduction with strains of Ed Kuepper into a rollicking jig that would have any Pogues fan kicking the air. Lomas' guitar playing provides the spine from which he hangs his compositions. His easy & comfortable finger styles at times give way to swampy slide & full tilt raunch. His vocals mesh effortlessly with his playing, exhibiting a soulful & enviable marriage of talent & skill.
review by Michael Shrapnel for indie-cds.com 2006
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Mermaids says it all.....refreshing and timely..Go for it Stephen
author: i'm turning japaneseI am biased...I knew the Lomas boy when he was a puppy. Listening to those tracks just crystalised a lot of what growing up for us was like. Anzac Day should be, by all rights, an aussie icon song. Funny ... for Stephen it represents a picture of an event that didn't happen...for me it represents the truth of it- my ancient head having been patted by sundry diggers when I was a sproglet...and that smell of decay and stale beer is as fresh as yesterday for me. Musically I'm a bit of a retard...but Stephen can surely make those strings hum! Buy it!!!!!!
Mermaids says it all.....refreshing and timely..Go for it Stephen
author: i'm turning japaneseI am biased...I knew the Lomas boy when he was a puppy. Listening to those tracks just crystalised a lot of what growing up for us was like. Anzac Day should be, by all rights, an aussie icon song. Funny ... for Stephen it represents a picture of an event that didn't happen...for me it represents the truth of it- my ancient head having been patted by sundry diggers when I was a sproglet...and that smell of decay and stale beer is as fresh as yesterday for me. Musically I'm a bit of a retard...but Stephen can surely make those strings hum! Buy it!!!!!!
Great music to chill with
author: TracyMermaids CD was so realaxing to listen to. Great to chill with a glass of wine & listen to all day