MUSIC REVIEW: Joshua Radin, Underwater
UNDERWATER LOVE: Joshua Radin on stage in Leeds at Party in the Park last year. Picture - Mark Bickerdike
After a life hitherto devoting to staying firmly on land and avoiding water like the plague, there’s been an about turn for Joshua Radin that has helped inspire his new, very cool album.
Since he was a child, doctors warned Radin that he should avoid immersing himself in water because, after a suffering a punctured eardrum as a toddler, he could experience sharp, piercing pain if he did.
Looking at it with a practical head on, Radin declared to live on land and avoid water.
But that changed last year, in a secluded house near Los Angeles, when he woke up and realised there could be real inspiration in the Pacific.
So he bought some earplugs and jumped in.
‘It was mind-blowingly cool,’ he admits. ‘I never realised the silence one experiences underwater. My brain was totally free to come with a melody line, and that’s where this album began, underwater.’
The name has stuck. Underwater is released on Monday and has a very mature, accomplished sound.
Not surprising when you look at the list of magical musicians he has recruited for the submersible venture.
Pianist Benmont Trench joins the team after decades working with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan drummer Jim Keltner is involved and also Simon and Garfunkel’s one time string arranger Jimmie Haskell.
The result is, as should be expected with a back catalogue of Radin’s standard, soothing and inspirational, especially in the hopeful Anywhere Your Love Goes and Let It Go, which honours the time he launched up the coastline in a convertible with a friend.
Underwater is mature and has a worthy collection of lyrics, but it’s the musical quality that also calls us back for more.
Radin’s compositions to date have been used in a range of film and TV roles, and that amount will increase with the release of Underwater.
From Grey’s Anatomy to American Idol In The House, there are few genres in which his music has not appeared in the score.
Radin has built up a grassroots following through social networking sites after his first song, Winter, was a hit on TV show Scrubs.
His old and new material will be the feature of his worldwide tour this year as he puts Underwater to the test in front of a live audience.
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Thursday 23 May 2013
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