Starfish Room review

Mucchio 1995 205
By Elizabetta Mustillo
Submitted by Sai
Translation by me

  Two young rebels shared the favor of a not very large but enthusiastic audience during a show held at the Starfish in Vancouver.
  The performance of rising star of American music Jeff Buckley was preceded by Brenda Kahn's performance, committed to the promotion of an album that should be released soon with the title Destination Anywhere. The young singer-songwriter gave life to an opening show in which she was mastered by an aggressive fundamental vocality (even though managed almost carelessly) and the dry and incisive sound of the guitars. Kahn has proposed to a rather meagre audience a series of love songs with a beloved flavor, demonstrating a remarkable ability to produce fast and tight rhythmic pieces, even though there were some touching melancholy intimacies during the show.
  But the highlight of the evening had come, of course, by the performance of the 26-year-old son of the unforgotten Tim Buckley. He presented himself to the public with a deeply melancholy expression on his face, which has helped to create an undoubtedly seductive romantic image for him. The concert that included in the setlist almost all songs from the album Grace, that the artist debuted with a few months ago, began with the unmistakable notes of the title track, and then continued with the performance of the various Dream Brother, Eternal Life, Lilac Wine, So Real that have made Grace one of the most interesting records released recently.
  Attention was immediately drawn to Buckley's intense voice, also because this one clearly appeared to be his privileged expressive tool, and the only one involved in the game of upheaval, of freedom of interpretation. Except for an Eternal Life more convulsive and angry than ever before, the interpretation has always been very controlled, almost as if to express the need to focus more on the inner dimension or perhaps instead precisely that of counterbalancing a tension that was released in a devastating way from every performance.
  This sort of balance has been broken anyway, towards the end of the concert, from a very anarchic version of Lover, You Should've Come Over (resumed immediately afterwards in a more conventional, but certainly no less poignant way) which provided the audience with an eloquent example of how inner torment can take the form of the dilation of sounds into slow agony, as well as the torture of the vocal cords.
  And precisely with this exploration of vocal possibilities brought to exasperation Buckley has shown that he belongs to that category of musicians (Jimmi Hendrix in the lead) who materialize the pain and anxiety in the physical torment of the strings of their instrument. During a devastating encore, loudly demanded by the audience, he has increased the dose in this regard, following a full-immersion in the dimension of slow vivisection of the soul a cold and angry hard rock, like a Scottish shower. And that's how Jeff Buckley proved it, without a shadow of a doubt, to seduce his audience rather than an intriguing young poet's accursed image.

Mucchio Magazine

November, 1994
By Marco Denti
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me 

Languid and sharp guitars, a bluesy air, Leonard Cohen, a small and efficient combo of rock 'n' roll and a voice that offers not a few reasons to foresee this bright young man (son of art only by chance) a bright future.

It has been a long time since we missed those songwriters, visionary and a bit 'moody, that form a variable not better defined in rock' n 'roll. People who come to us by series of fortuitous coincidences, by mistake or because, otherwise, they would have no place to go, as then testify their lives: too involved in the dramas of life, unable to distinguish poetry from reality, cosmic needs from everyday follies . Many names could be mentioned but they would all take us back to the past with a thread of sadness, to say the truth a little too excessive. Instead it becomes obligatory to talk about Jeff Buckley: born near Disneyland, a young voice of an existential malaise raised between New York and Los Angeles, first (and hopefully, not least) example of a songwriting that has established links with the past (for a certain background sensitivity) but is very current in every other part of it. It is definitely worth checking out by listening to Grace, his brilliant autumn debut: languid and sharp guitars, a bluesy air, Leonard Cohen, a small and efficient rock 'n' roll combo and the voice, that of Jeff Buckley, which offers not few reasons to foresee a bright future for this young man (son of art only by chance). Or dark and deep: certainly and in any case, very intense because, and Grace is a very effective testimony, Jeff Buckley knows how to write songs that speak for themselves and tells of a world so intimate and personal (his) with a grace and a such force as to make it perfectly recognizable, as if we had seen it, as if it were our own. Far from the exercise of memory, what seems to differentiate in sharp measure, Jeff Buckley from all the fathers putative (or not) is the different position that the music, the songs occupy in life, For them, for the singers of the pink moon, of the dolphins and of the solid air was a curious introspective means, a closed circle of emotions, a sort of self-protective nirvana. For Jeff Buckley, on the other hand, it seems to be a liberating catharsis, the raw expression, the need to express an interiority otherwise frustrated by the obviousness and the inevitable expirations of life with which, sooner or later, we must come to terms. Grace is the first verification of the state of things for Jeff Buckley and a little jewel of true, intense music, not far from what we would like to be poetry. Certainly not in the strictly lyrical sense of the term, but rather the only imaginable reality, that is a valid reason to believe that, despite everything (but all really) the world still has some of that grace sung by Jeff Buckley.

It is difficult to distinguish how much Grace is the work of a single singer-songwriter from the more complex one of a band. There's your name, all right, but the songs seem to be the result of a much more collective work. To what extent did the musicians influence your work?

When I moved to New York, in 1990 and the Lower East Side, a place where I felt at home more than anywhere else, I started playing alone: ​​it was the cheapest and most immediate means, but the music I love and that I've heard has always had the support of a band. Sponaneity and dynamics increase significantly when you are in a group and a common attention is required that always keeps the tension high. So even though Grace was not expressly conceived for a band, the group was casually formed while we recorded it. Playing with the band makes the music more coagulated, more dense and Grace has grown so, practically live.

In fact, before Grace there was that four-song album Live At Sinè that in some ways it can be considered a real prologue to your debut.

Yes, it was recorded in an Irish coffe shop in the East Village, where they played three shows per night, a place where I was at home with the band. The choice to record Live at The Sin-è was our own, a decision that wanted to feed something to all those rumors that were beginning to circulate on our behalf. It was a response to the attention and how to stop a small moment in the history of the group and our music.

Grace is a disc full of nuances, with a profound strength in songs and sounds. In a word, it sounds very inspired. What stimulates you, at least in the initial stage of songwriting?

I do not know, it's hard to say. All the songs come from life, from my life, from what is awakening in me, from observation and everyday experiences. I feel a spirit that grows to understand, to learn and no matter what the topic you are facing, whether it is a political question or the story of a friend: they are still part of life, of what you are.

Is the same speech for the music? I mean: Grace is very homogeneous and yet there are obvious fragments of the music you listened to, apart from Hallelujah, obviously.

I have a free pier approach to music because I am convinced it is not just any convention. Personally I am not trying to define a particular form, somehow rigid and precise. The songs are my forms: the music is used only to touch those keys deep inside. It is an experience very close to the trance. So, if I have to express myself at the level of names I would say Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, Thelonious Monk, Clouds and For the Roses by Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, but it's a vague and completely temporary list. My musical aesthetic is an attempt to stop the beauty of a moment, a sensation, an emotion.

So it is not abstract to consider Grace a collection of love songs, perhaps in the broadest sense of the word, therefore also including the negative and dark sides. I think of Mojo Pin, Last Goodbye and So Real, for example.

Mojo Pin, yes, it's a love story but I can not distinguish it from any of Grace's other songs. For my part, I grew up without the concept of sin, it is not something that I brought with me, in my background, until today, so I find it hard to stress what I express in my songs. I do not think rock 'n' roll is a disease, I do not think sex is evil, I can not conceive of a separation between god and satan, I can not think that there is something negative about music and emotions.

But the perspective changes: in Dream Brother or in Eternal Life you express yourself in a very clear way to situations now frozen, blocked, under control. There is no room for many other interpretations.

Well, the story of Dream Brother is very explicit because it is also very personal. I had a friend, we played together in the same group, we went around every day. Now he has a lot of children and he has disappeared somewhere. We do not see each other anymore. Mine was just a reflection, regardless of the choices. It is easy to disappear or get stuck, controlled. What you can do is move, stay in motion, look for a way out.

Is it the same basic theme that returns to Eternal Life?

Yes, in a sense. It's so easy to get lost, and it's so easy to get lost, and it's so easy to waste time and, in time, your imagination. I often think of all these people sitting in front of the television. Seated still. This is the common idea of ​​Dream Brother and Eternal Life: life is hard. It is dying and growing, and today, it is easy to die before you grow up.

There is an uncommon sensitivity in what you say and in what you sing. How do you manage to reconcile being a musician, then having to endure all the inevitable pressures in the field with such a marked sensitivity?

The pressures exist, it's true. However, this is a job where you have the opportunity to express yourself and I am happy to be in this business as I am. It's hard, it's difficult, of course, but it does not mean anything. Music helps us understand who we are. What can be done is to sift, to watch and, if necessary, to refuse. Because what we are intimately can not be faked or bought.

Milan Review

Mucchio 1994 November 202
By Ida Tiberio
Submitted by Sai
Translated by me

An early and evil autumn raged on Milan. The rain does not give a single moment of truce and puts a strain on the seraphic and chatty spirit of those who await the opening of Planet Rock to attend a concert that promises to be very interesting. 'We believe in rock', warns with peremptory security a sign placed at the entrance of the small and charming Milanese venue. We can assume that all those present are enthusiastically associated with this warm declaration of faith and when Jeff Buckley's (validissima) band goes on the stage, he confirms that he has not put his trust in something that is not very well deserving. After a few minutes of music he finds himself immersed in the most obvious and salacious comments: "He's just like his father", "The chromosomes mean something", "Of course, genetics is not an opinion".

But, in spite of these and other jokes, the simplicity and the expressive power of this twenty-seven year old musician with a mild and adolescent air did not take long to conquer an attentive and receptive audience. Jeff Buckley, author of Grace one of the best debut records of recent months, faces the stage with a slight initial embarrassment, but soon the desire to communicate and the good harmony with the group have the best emotion and shyness. Jeff's voice, profound, evocative, ancestrally restless (and in this similar to that of his father Tim) breaks the plush and sometimes monotonous gait of a concert that, from minute to minute, becomes increasingly captivating and engaging. "Mojo Pin", pervaded by tension and intimacy, the dreamlike and fascinating "So Real", the splendid J. Shelton "Lilac Wine" ballad, they pass the live performance without difficulty.

The young Jeff Buckley has a really remarkable compositional talent and a sensitivity of an intense and refined interpreter (just think of the beautiful cover of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, unfortunately not included in the lineup of the Milanese concert). Of course, a more experienced artist would have used these skills to make the most intriguing and decorative, but the skinny, intimate beauty of "Lover You Should Have Come Over", "Grace" and "Eternal Life" does not require spectacular artifice to manifest itself. Jeff Buckley with his sober lyricism has proved to be worth, and a lot, even without bothering the mythical and suggestive image of a father never known.