Ed Hale shines through on this solo work!
little tree | Seattle, WA | 12/20/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I first heard Ed Hale on Rise and Shine and immediately fell in love with his voice and music, hence, got the album Acoustic in NY. This is a solo album with Ed Hale & his guitar, singing from his heart & soul. He carries the album so beautifully on his own that I sometimes cannot believe he is doing it solo. Ed Hale's guitar playing is magnificent, ... I love the eastern style guitar strumming he does at the beginning of Bored(#1) and end of Paris(#4). There is such depth in the lyrics ... inspirational as in Promised Land & The Greatest Gift, romantic in Paris & Jelly Role and plain magnificent in Rooms of my mind and Bored. Adjectives that come to my mind describing this album are: honest, real, vulnerable, and reachable. This is an unpolished and raw work of a truely creative artist, an awesome demonstration of Ed Hale's talent as a true musician, his voice, his lyrics, his music and guitar playing."
INCREDIBLE
tkb2101 | 09/10/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The rare moments when I hear music like this are when my actively suppressed desire to be a musician completely overpowers me. I don't think I ever heard an artist manifest so much raw passion. The primordial vibrations pouring out of his voice and the beautifully soothing strum of the guitar involuntarily make you instantly connect to either him or what he's saying.
Acoustic in New York is like a storybook, an uninhibited, poignant narrative of one of his (or whomever's) evolutionary stages in life. Bored, the first track, expresses a restlessness and deep yearning for something meaningful in life. For purpose. For the unordinary. The next song unveils an otherworldly, altruistic dedication to better humanity. As if carrying the weight of the entire planet on his shoulders is the solution to alleviating his boredom or restlessness. Interspersed amidst this altruism (...Take my hand / Every woman every man / I'll lead you to the Promised Land) are snippets of his experiences with love, narrated in such a way that you wonder how a 25-year-old could possibly have acquired so much wisdom about life, love, and happiness. (I especially like the quite reflective Paris.) There's also a playful, sultry side, Cool Rider, in case you start to wonder if he's always so intense.
Although the album emits an overall message of optimism, if you listen closely, you can detect a subtle haunting strain hovering in the background. It becomes more evident toward the latter half (Stay) and quite obvious at the end (Rooms of My Mind) in which he tears away the final layer protecting his vulnerability, grappling with how to come to terms with a mind-boggling swirl of confusing identities. It's as if he realizes that if he decides to take it upon himself to be everyone's savior, then there's no one to save him: Jesus if you please don't let me fall to pieces anymore / I'm somewhere in my head / I might as well be dead.
There is no solution to this realization. His plea, "...can't you see that / I'm no ordinary guy?", brings him right back to where he started on Bored: I just can't believe that I'm stuck in this hell [once more].
This is my favorite of his CDs; it's hard to not repeat the album description.... His lyrics are the creation of an incredible genius (e.g., "spilling paradise all over each other" - Promised Land) and the way he plays the guitar is completely mesmerizing, captivating. It's difficult for me to describe his music, but the instant he starts to play, you know that you're listening to a master. I don't know how he does it. He reminds me of Bob Dylan--but the sound is different. More alive. More real. An ever present beat, like subconsciously being aware of your own heart beating.
I really don't think you can go wrong buying Acoustic in New York."
The transitional Ed Hale album out on a limb and all on his
Clark Davies | LONDON | 12/23/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Acoustic in New York is hard to fully fathom now because it seems so far away from the Ed Hale we know today from TRANSCENDENCE. Recorded in 1996 when Hale was just getting his wings back after departing from longtime bandmates in Broken Spectacles, Ed had just begun to fly solo again. After almost ten years, it is surprising how well this soft, almost-whisper of a collection of acoustic songs holds up. Especially since its initial release, Hale's new band TRANSCENDENCE has covered a few of the songs on this disc and turned them inside out. As always strong melodies are a plenty. Vocals still a bit 'worbly' compared to how he sings now; but one hardly notices. Instead what you find is that you are almost immediately sucked into the ethereal spiritual and orchestral pathos and beauty of the album. It is a very passionate work. A transitional work. Ed was flying between bands, out on his own, still hunting down the songs as the eternal songwriter that he is at his core. It is also important to note that not only was it his last album of the nineties, he didn't release another album for almost six years until the TRANSCENDENCE debut RISE AND SHINE. For this, it is a treasure. When all is said and done, and Hale has finally burned out his infinite curiosity for genre-skipping, varietal-dabbling, and musical experimentaion, ACOUSTIC IN NEW YORK will still be there to remind us why he is such an important artist and why we love him so much. Good songs. Great passion. And an innocence and spiritual essence underneath it all that speaks leagues more than loud guitars and crashing drums ever could."
Track Listings (10) - Disc #1