John Isaac Watters
Album: Campanas
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.johnisaacwatters.com

I can't quite get a handle on songwriter John Isaac Watters, even after several plays - but he fascinates me enough to persist trying to make sense of his writing, and I end up liking most of this record (John's third, I believe) rather a lot in spite of its intermittent inscrutability. John's loosely alt-indie-country-cum-west-coast-maverick style appears inspired as much by contemporary Americana, Mexicana and even rock'n'roll as by Bay-Area-folk. His grained singing voice displays a shiveringly vulnerable intimacy and yet embodies a tender strength; one moment he's cracking up before your very ears, the next he's holding forth manically with an almost impossible confidence - listen to Museum Of Art and you'll hear this expressionist conundrum at its most extreme. There's an almost demented aura to the blowsy, brassy mardi-gras-carnivalesque, shambolic Ragman and the cathartic full-on electric charge of I'm Your Man (where John seems to tear his throat out in desperation), while there's a rather cheesier pop swagger to Ships Don't Sail. My Family's Gone is arguably the weirdly accessible kindof highlight of the disc, although it's every bit as eccentric as its jittery, clattering junk-shop-percussion backdrop. Other tracks, like the majestic poetic Cathedral, find John in an altogether more ruminative mood. John's also blessed with the support of a fine backing band (Raymond Richards, William Gramling and David Raven, with Alex Rhodes on backing vocals) and other musicians playing cameo parts (banjo, clarinet and horns) at key points.

There's almost bound to be a downside to this intriguing record, however. For, sadly, and despite much painstaking searching, I can't tell you anything at all about John or in any way fill you in on anything to do with the man's background, since his website contains absolutely no biographical detail and there seems to be no link to any other available source for this kind of information (here's another instance of poor PR). OK, the music speaks for itself to some extent, but even this is also not helped by a package that crams the songs' lyrics onto an inner face of the cardboard CD case. How frustrating.

David Kidman