AugustBag is the name of this East Midlands UK blues artist who would rather sing and play his guitar outdoors than anywhere else. A cursory Facebook search finds over 50 videos of Bag (who looks a bit like a young Bob Dylan, complete with Woody Guthrie cap) playing in the bushes on hot summer days. He claims to write and rehearse all his material outside, and the video evidence certainly backs this up! For this E.P. Bag laid down four tracks in his garage studio (which also boasts the occasional cricket).
Bag’s style of choice is country blues, one of the earliest forms of blues music. His songs are short, mostly in the same key, and accompany his vocals with simple but evocative picking patterns. Bag has added minimal overdubs, usually a doubled or harmony vocal and some acoustic lead. He chose these four songs as a quick career overview with two early tunes paired with two more recent compositions. The E.P. opens with “The Voyage” which I consider Bag’s signature song: a walking-blues workout about a man leaving worldly concerns behind for a journey to seek his riches across the sea “…and never come home.” Here and elsewhere Bag’s English accent is a bit heavy for my American ears, and without a lyrics sheet I was struggling to catch whatever words I could, but the feel of a man traveling far from his former life is undeniable. “Little Lies,” one of Bag’s recent songs, is played in jaunty 2/4 time and is about lying and playing games within a relationship; it has a great upbeat energy, without a note or moment wasted. (I also detect an uncredited female harmony vocal. Interesting!) The earliest composition here is “Dollar Dream,” another unrequited love song which features nice mysterioso guitar licks and the best solo on the E.P. “A Man Passing Through” is my favorite track, as Bag’s deft licks and finger-slides recall many of his down-home blues mentors. It’s another song about a man heading away from what he knows, yearning for “the silence in me” away from conversation and distractions. Though Bag’s recording methods are serviceable, the songs are better than their recordings. Vocals and guitar are mostly clean, but the overdubs seem of a different sonic space and don’t always mesh. I can’t help wonder why Bag - with such a stripped-down sound and love for the outdoors - didn’t go all the way and record his E.P. in nature. Quibbles aside, these four songs stand as a nice introduction to this unique artist.
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