Josh Harty “Nowhere”

Magnolia Recording Company, 2011

Rich and engaging singer-songwriter EP

• For six of the seven tracks on American singer-songwriter Josh Harty’s new EP things look pretty good. The seventh however, a cover of Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”, is seriously misjudged: too fast, shorn of drama and losing out in the inevitable guitar playing comparisons.

   

• But back to the positive; Harty has a warm, intimate performance style.  You can ease into his songs from the first note and his voice has that perfect combination of resignation and hope.   The songs are all downbeat, even mournful, and Harty’s performances are utterly convincing, whether on the doom-laden “Whiskey & Morphine”, the more upbeat tune (but downbeat lyrics) of “Sweet Solution” or an excellent cover of Brooks West’s “6th Avenue”.

  Harty isn’t flash or showy, he just lays his songs out there as unadorned and shorn of artifice as you please. This is a release that deserves a wide audience and one that (barring that one misstep aside), is, in its quiet way, up there with anything else you’ll hear this year.