Divided Man
Brian Rudy
Think Music Tank
1999
15 tracks
The music of Brian Rudy is yet another example of why, in today's eclectic music scene, genre classification is a dangerous thing. To pigeonhole Rudy into any single classification would be to diminish the very diversity that makes his music work. Rudy's music is evanescent and iridescent, a veritable code of many colours.
Rudy's lyrics take shape as mantra ("Angel" or "Alone"), story ("Change In The Weather" or "The Meeting"), reflective essay ("Finally Figured This Out" or "Anyway"), photograph ("Holiday Reflections"), movie short (especially large portions of "Divided Man"), and more. Some are quirky. For example, "Nietschian Slip" has no printed lyrics yet words are sung over the music and lyrics are printed for "Alone (Thesis)" but none are sung or spoken on the recording.
My general sense of this recording is that it's like pared down Seventies rock. There's the hard-driving acoustic guitar, the over-reverbed voice, the lush "MacArthur Park" fills, the long songs (the "Divided Man" suite is actually five interconnected tracks totalling 15:49), and odd mix of folkish lyrics and guitar with harder rocking guitar and percussion. The cover art, a panorama painted in a Group of Seven meets Magritte style, really epitomizes the overall feel of this recording.
There are echoes here of Mason Williams, Seventies Lightfoot ("The Canadian Railroad Trilogy" or "Don Quixote" come to mind), The Who ("Magic Bus"), The Allmann Brothers, Alan Parsons, Todd Rundgren, and the later Beatles (or perhaps Wings). There's some of the feel of Seventies British folk, the rocking sort epitomized by Richard Thompson and others, and more than a little Celtic edge (although that leans more toward today's neo-Celtic rock).
Rudy has a distinctive singing voice and style. Some might even say his voice is strange and his style more than a little quirky. Set in the context of his own words and music, Rudy's voice has the ideal sound, the finishing touch for a work of art with a very personal perspective that somehow manages at the same time to touch upon the universal.
For those who would like a brief stroll through the other side of the looking glass, a break from the humdrum world, Divided Man may be just your trip, no mushrooms required.
To discover more about the surreal world of Brian Rudy, explore his cyber-home.
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