Imaginary Johnny Dig CD cover
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Stuart Wolferman’s plaintive post-modern statement of time’s continuum … “Noah built his ark before it rained, I keep my good boots by the door” … begins the latest release by Imaginary Johnny, “Dig.” Tracking tornado activity is joined by a tintinnabulation of an almost toy piano. Guitar builds a continuo that is a background for the ultimate sentiment of “To Be Excused.” “Dig” is a collection of the moments we live every day. Somehow when these moments belong to someone else though, they have greater meaning. “To Be Excused” uses vocal and musical techniques to denote and distort the passing of time, angst and philosophy, in a summing up of the existential equation. Listen to the entire album as a whole–the arc of meaning emerges upon repeated listening. The next track, “She Has the Sky,” has a1980s flavor to its story and, though “dig” could mean unearthing something, so many of the metaphors among these tracks represents a search for a kinship, with something greater than oneself, that is sometimes achieved, and sometimes continues to be sought after. Weather metaphors abound as well … inner turmoil? You’ll need to give it a listen.
Rain isolates and cleanses by turns. “Illumination” looks back with rose-colored glasses, yet the people then were seeking, too. They were just seeking different things. The world they made has lead to the world we are making … and when we dig, what we’ve left behind always looks better, more simple. These songs come at a time when Imaginary Johnny is more organically a part of one another, than when they debuted almost 10 years ago. The give and take among the musicians—Wolferman on vocals and piano, Adam Sylvia on guitar, Marc Alan Goodman’s bass, and on drums both Ismail Lawal and Andrew Soto—is generous, and knowing when to lead and when to follow is a lost art. There is darkness, light, introspection and the search for companionship. Is the world cold? Does luck exist? Who can say? But this will be a great stocking stuffer for people who like their music to mean something. Check them out on ImaginaryJohnny.com and get your copy of an album that swims upstream into instruments from the all-electronic wasteland. This may be your soundtrack to rainy winter walks and those sunny white-light winter weekends cruising the Strand.