I used to love to go crate digging in record stores, but haven’t done so in a long while. Many stores I frequented are no longer around and I’ve now also drastically curtailed my LP purchases (I’ve never particularly enjoyed flipping through CD bins. It’s just not the same). Instead, these days I often come across online needledrops of obscure LPs, mostly from the 1960s and 70s, but sometimes going back to the 1950s and forward into the 2000s. Perusing such album posts has become my current version of crate digging, or perhaps now it’s more like “virtual digging.” Some fun and fascinating finds have popped up and I thought I’d periodically post reviews of these “virtual digs.”
Grace and Gratitude is the 2004 album by British bass player Steve Lawson. It’s one of the over one hundred releases in his catalog. Some of them are collaborations with other musicians, but many are instrumental solo works with Lawson performing all the parts on bass. The title track for this album is a soothing meditation anchored by a reoccurring sliding riff. “The Journey of a Thousand Miles” begins ominously with slowly building, then fading, atmospheric buzzes, leading to scattered string plucking, then rumbling sheets of sound. At least three different bass lines bounce off each other like randomly colliding spheres in “The Kindness of Strangers.” A hectic wave of notes provides the groundwork for “The Space Between the Silence” as echoed splashes daub all over the sonic canvas. Part jazz, part improvisation, part ambient, Grace and Gratitude is a peaceful trek through beguiling soundscapes created by Lawson’s virtuosity.
Steve does not use the usual streaming services to distribute his work. Instead, he has set up a subscription offer through Bandcamp where you can sign up to receive new and exclusive releases as they come out. To say Lawson is prolific is an understatement, so subscribing is well worth the price.
https://stevelawson.bandcamp.com/subscribe
MAY 24, 2024
Letter to the Vatican 