» Mirrorwriting by Jamie Woon | Album Review / thetruejoe90

Monday 02 May, 2011

Mirrorwriting by Jamie Woon | Album Review

Mirrorwriting - Jamie Woon - thetruejoe90.com

I’m struggling to begin with this article. I’m struggling to pigeon-hole this record into the right genre. But that is wrong of me. Music shouldn’t be categorised so easily as there are many variations. Many styles. This debut album by Jamie Woon is certainly one not to be pigeon-holed.

Mirrorwriting is a record that has it’s fingers in many genre defining pies. I’m wanting to say it’s electro-acoustic but the vocal style is more suited to RnB but it has a touch more soul sounding similar to the legendary, Stevie Wonder in many places and then soft-rock ballads alike to classical Michael Jackson works. Except without the rock part.

When looking for more information on the artist I couldn’t help but to notice the clarity of the music I was listening to. Some moments were absolute perfection and within my inner monologue I’m complimenting the production skills. Then, I notice some sort of vinyl disturbance. A distortion or crackling as if it was being played on a dusty record player. Upon further intensive examination because I was becoming annoyed i thought that this may perhaps be intentional. I replayed a few of the tracks such as Secondbreath, Street and Waterfront as well as the remarkable Night Air – below – and I couldn’t help but to compare the production similarities to drum and bass maestro, Burial aka William Bevan, who is renowned by his signature use of vinyl crackling effects and the faint, subtle reverb on the vocal parts. Upon realising the use of Bevan’s influence in the studio when creating the album, immediately my respect for this album went up a few notches as well as the volume.

His voice appears faultless. He has great strength in his larynx which enables him to hold the notes and dish out some powerful, tone-perfect choruses and fill-ins. The general groove to every track is seductive, tantalising and mesmerising from start to finish. Sweet, sexy and charming. The production on this is superb.

The remixes within the music player are the Royce Wood Jnr, Hudson Mohawke Schmink Wolf and dÉbruit’s Suave. The first and the last of which are available for free by clicking on the downward arrow within the player.

I love this. This is really, really good. I suggest you go see him.

Mirrorwriting by Jamie Woon is out now released by Polydor records.