Saturday, November 6, 2010

OLD MAN RIVER sunshine ep

ShoutAboutMusic wants to make it clear that no credit can be taken for the success of Old Man River's career (he's topped the charts in Japan and Italy, you know). However, this article was written in 2004 before the release of OMR's debut EP. Nuff sed...

The debut EP by Ohad Rein (aka Old Man River, aka The Tinker) is the latest branch of an incestuous family tree that's harder to follow than Twin Peaks. Y'see The Tinker is a part-time member of Gelbison along with the Kahn brothers Nadav (aka The Joiner) and Edo (aka The Weaver). All three of them are part of Nations By The River along with Luke Steele (aka mad Sleepy Jackson fella, aka The Carpenter). The Tinker has supported The Carpenter's band, the Weaver and Joiner's band and Ian Ball (aka mad Gomez fella). Nations By The River has supported Gomez and now The Joiner and The Weaver have co-written and produced a track from The Tinker's EP. You get all that? Nope, me neither. Still let's press on with the review shall we?

What's great about the Sunshine EP is that different songs grab you at different times. On first listen it's the loved up pop jangle of the title track that's most striking. Once you're better acquainted it's the gentle sitar and mystic lyric of 'Watching It All' that creeps into your affections. A few more plays and days later and suddenly you realise you've fallen for the soothing acoustic comforts of 'Your Side'. By this stage you’ll still be scratching your head over that family tree nonsense, but it won’t matter. You’ll just be utterly charmed by The Tinker's little box of delights.

Listen to this album if: You're a tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man or thief.

By Andy McLean. Copyright held by author.
First published in The Brag, Sydney, 2004.

Sunshine was first released by MGM.

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