A Certain Distance
Dave Nachmanoff
Troubador Records
2000
11 tracks
This is comfortable music. It's easy-listening, relaxing music that can carry you away to somewhere peaceful. Not quite new-age, this music nonetheless has that sort of non-intrusive quality. The songs are well-performed and well-produced. This may not necessarily be a good thing. It's too easy to drift away with the music and not hear Dave Nachmanoff's words. The words are worth a listen. They're worth a read. It would be a shame if the words got lost in the flow of the melody.
Nachmanoff's music is simple and straightforward, the stuff of pop ballads from the Sixties through today. It's conservative music that doesn't take chances, so peaceful that it's most likely to be played on the sort of FM radio station that becomes background music in classy restaurants. Nachmanoff's vocals take that same quiet approach, adjusting only slightly from song to song depending on the content. His vocal style ranges from a type of Don McLean through the least raucus Bare Naked Ladies to a pulled back Neil Diamond.
In the notes, Nachmanoff comments that he had once been a philosopy instructor. His academic background comes through in his lyrics, giving them a certain depth and fullness they might not otherwise have. These may be song lyrics, but they are also literate and literary poems such as might have been found in a Sixties chapbook.
The lyrics are even presented like a set of poems. In the packaging for this release, there is a small booklet in which these lyrics/poems are printed. Like academic poetry, these pieces are fully annotated with sources for the images and concepts so that the interested student can delve more deeply. It's a different and interesting concept for a music release. As poetry, these lyrics are a compelling read.
Behind Nachmanoff's simple, unaffected performance of these songs, his words have an earnestness that falls somewhere between hippie songs and songs of protest as they were being written some thirty and forty years ago. His songs express a certain longing for connectedness that finds its expression variously in a search for truth, in tales of love and loss and grieving, in new birth and remembrance of family roots, in the Holocaust and survival of community, in the harsh reality of poverty, and in the joy of a loving relationship between man and woman.
Although it would appear that this release is about words and ideas, it includes two instrumental pieces. At just 34 seconds, "The British Grenadiers" provides a traditional martial introduction to "The Loyalist" which follows. In a quirky stroke of humour, this brief number is attributed to The Ringwood New Jersey Fife & Drum Corps, which is actually just Don Conoscenti on recorder and Keith Crane on drums. "Port Angeles" is the sort of innocuous instrumental you might hear playing behind some folksy poet as he reads his words. Here, "Port Angeles" appears to serve no purpose other than as a bridge between the lively "Let's Eat" and the quieter "Flying a Sign."
A Certain Distance benefits from the efforts of a group of accomplished musicians who, in addition to multi-instrumentalist Nachmanoff, include Don Conoscenti (rhythm),Bob Malone (keys), Ellis Paul (backing vocals), and Rachel McCartney (backing vocals). Al Stewart shows up as a special guest vocalist on "The Loyalist" and Ellis Paul provides some excellent up-front harmonies on the title track.
While the music on this release would better serve the ideas (and ideals) of Nachmanoff's well-crafted lyrics if it were not so conservative and tentative, this quiet presentation is excellent in its own way. I would have preferred to see more innovation in the music to better bring out the lyrical content, but A Certain Distance does stand up well as it is, both as a work of art and as a commercial product. It's well worth a listen and, especially, a read.
Anyone who wants to know more about Dave Nachmanoff and his music can find complete information at his official website. To hear clips of four of the songs on A Certain Distance, visit Dave Nachmanoff's page at CD Baby.
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Review written: March 26, 2005
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