Paul Guzzone
Album: Chasing The Moon
Label: TrippleZ
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.paulguzzone.com

For the past two decades Paul Guzzone has been the bass player and vocalist in the Bacon Brothers' band; actor Kevin Bacon and his composer brother Michael. He has co-produced several of their albums, plays a myriad of instruments and handles all the instrumentation on the album.

'Chasing the Moon' has been out Stateside for a few months and was released in Europe on October 25th. The press release which came with the album described it as a "soundscape meets reggae-infused pop, contemporary gives way to retro and fantasy induces romance". Although short in length, clocking in just over 32 minutes, I found 'Chasing the Moon' diverse in styles and in the main although not my usual cup of tea, a quite enjoyable album about love, the loss of love and the security of love.

Outstanding tracks are the opener ''I Will Carry You' with its summery reggae tinged ukulele and poppy dub bass which had Mrs L dancing in the kitchen; 'Everything Happens for a Reason' , a slice of British rock pop that takes in Divine Comedy and Ian Mcnabb as two of its reference points, and the Costello-esque 'Blue Carribbean Waltz'. One regret I have is that he didn't put on the album his single from last year 'Light At the EOL', a subtle political slant on wanting tolerance and truth in the American political arena.

What for me makes the album very interesting is his first rate sympathetic production which captures the warmth of every instrument through giving space to breathe, interact and weave. What makes a refreshing change is that compression on all tracks appears to be minimal. A bit of digging on his website I found we had similar values on production technique:- "the writing of a song and it's electronic re-creation are inseparable. The sound is everything. It's the atmosphere that entices listeners into hearing the lyrics." I wish a lot more artiste's would consider this when releasing albums.

Chris Light