mike fanno - week

Mike Fanno

Week
self-released; 2014

3.4 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

Thank you Mike Fanno for proving that if you have a bit of studio know how you can make a good sounding album on consumer gear. Seattle-based Fanno took two years of production classes and the results are on his recent album entitled Week. Week is an instrumental guitar based album and if the production was sub-par then the album wouldn’t work. There are some types of music that can tolerate and even benefit from lo-fi production but not the material on Week.

Fanno is kind of all over the place on this album but for some reason wasn’t raging at the gods because of it. There are plenty of artists that genre jump like no one is paying attention that irritate me to no end but Fanno somehow gets away with it. 

The arrangements feel very open and full of space, which is probably the most attractive part of the music. It’s delightful on your ears and doesn't feel like he is cramming too many things in a finite amount of space. There are eleven songs and some are good, some are inventive and some veer on the side of boring. 

Fanno opens with “Madness In Reverse,” which is an atmospheric piece that utilizes bass and electronic elements more than his guitar. Though it was an odd choice for an opener since most of the other songs are centered around the guitar. “The Party” doesn't sound like much of a party at all and certainly not a song I would suggest putting on at your next gathering. It more or less is a test in patience as he slowly moves from one guitar chord to another.

“Farenheit” was a solid, enjoyable track although I could have done without the spoken word aspects of the music. Fanno hits a high point with “Puzzles” and the ambient “Fog” but the highlight was “Purpose.” “Purpose” felt like a fleshed out song rather than ideas that never got fleshed out. 

There are some hits and misses as the album progresses but it ends strong with “Seattle.” It's all guitar - good guitar. Week isn’t great nor is it bad. I felt like there were good ideas here but they never reached their full potential at times.

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