Eric Apoe and THEY, Book Of Puzzles
Singer/songwriter Erci Apoe may be little known, but he's a force to be reckoned with, having been around the block and back again in the music industry as a studio songwriter and lived to tell the tale. He's played and rubbed elbows with everyone from Dave Friesen and Larry Coryell, to Chuck E. Weiss and Tom Waits. However, his talent and sincerity far outweigh the scope of his credentials. Book of Puzzles, his fourth release with his band, "They", is beautiful, haunting, and stately without a hint of pretense. The band's sound incorporates elements of American and European roots music into a sound that is at once familiar and unique: waltzes and blues numbers bed down with New Orleans jazz and folk ballads. "They" is currently made up of Dennis Rea and John Olufs on guitar, Damien Aitken on sax, Alicia Allen on violin, Tige De Coster on bass and Olli Klomp on drums. Their sound is fleshed out with occasional additions of cello, pipes, viola, saw, accordian, piano, echo harp and clarinet. Apoe's vocals are the backbone of each and every tune, his gravelly tone a perfect compliment to his honest, bitingly wistful lyrics. make sure to check out the haunting lament, "Times of Trouble"(the album's original title track), the rolliicking "Tinfoil Mardi Gras," and the minor key bluesy beauty of "Broken Hearted Blackbird." The understated "Synagogue Lullaby" is perhaps the most striking track on the album. As gorgeous as it is heartbreaking, it's a song of loss and loneliness that eschews tidy resolutions and touches instead on the open-ended sorrow that's woven into the very fabric of humanity. This quiet embrace of the inherent, resonant difficulty of living is the very heart of Apoe's songwriting. He's not out to find easy answers, but he'll never fail to tell it is like it is.
Sean Molnar