Bill Baird is back with
Sunset's "Gold Dissolves To Gray," and it's good. It's mellow, melodic bouncy, insightful and quite delightful. Parts of it such as the song "Sunshine Hair," sounds like
The Byrds met up with
The Grateful Dead and Smog to record this song in a lo-fi folk studio. The album is complete with echoing swirls, whispered vocals, plunking piano lines, finger picked acoustics and slide, steel guitars, with a Moog thrown in for good measure. The one thing holding this record back from being great is the singing. I want to hear Bill really sing. He does a lot of hushed singing and whispered vocals which tend to bog the record down. Overall, this record's got some really good bouncy numbers like,
"River's of Babylon," and
"Fishtown," which might just be my favorite song on the record.
The "
Garden of Eden" sounds like a show tune and is too preachy for me, since this theme has already been song many times over and most notably by,
Joni Mitchell with "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." I get what Bill's going for with this song, sort of a
Van Dyke Parks type thing, but it stands out as the odd song out on this record. "Gold Dissolves To Gray," is another great song. It's bouncy, soulful and melodic. If you are interested your can stream the entire record
here.
I met Bill a couple of years ago when he was starting up
Sunset. His band
Sound Team was breaking up and Bill was looking to put together an acoustic guitar orchestra for his songs. At one point we had 14 or 15 acoustic guitars. We played a couple of shows like that then realized we needed to trim this down to a band, and that's what we did. I went from acoustic guitar to Vox organ, I played drums on a few recordings and then I was out of the band. I'm not sure what really happened but I still respect Bill and love his music.
Bill re-recorded a favorite song of mine
"Civil War," for this record, it's a song about the internal battle we all face to walk the line, to do good, to control ourselves from impulsive outbursts, "My heart versus my brain, I fight like
Mark Twain and
Samuel Clemens must have fought before. There's no way to win, I've killed myself again, this lonely land of me in Civil War." How great is that? I like the addition of strings in the background on "Bones." Overall the record has a Frank Zappa feel to it, especially with the sound of electric guitars.
This is what the label,
Autobus has to say about
"Gold Dissolves To Gray:"Following-up the ltd. edition April 2009 Loveshines II 7″, which Dusted’s Still Single column dubbed “HUGE”, is Sunset’s fourth full length in two years, Gold Dissolves to Gray. The album is most similar in spirit to Bill Baird’s eponymous solo debut {{{SUNSET}}} and the early Sound Team material, with a natural touch for blending analog electronics with folk song. Yet, it is the clearest and most matured display of Bill Baird’s talents to date. Subtle and poetic beauty permeate songs like “Our Dreams Did Weave a Shade” and “Gold Dissolves to Gray.” Baird’s ability to tackle the “job” aspect of a songwriter in the tradition of greats like Woody Guthrie is as surprising as ever in the cleverly penned and wise “Garden of Eden” and “Civil War”. “Fishtown”, recorded for the Philadelphia recording-grant organization Weathervane, is like the the sort of Beach Boys Americana that might have happened if Van Dyke Parks had written to appeal to fans of Ralph Emerson rather than beach bums on acid trips. Yet Baird’s love of aesthetically beautiful, shoegazey tracks and his ability to make wordless music sing a song as sweet as with words is not left behind on Gold Dissolves to Gray.I hope you will give it a listen, nice work Bill!
