Scott Tuma

I’ve got a review up at Dusted of Scott Tuma’s Dandelion, a sort of ambient, atmospheric exploration of folk and blues from the Souled American and Boxhead Ensemble guitarist.

Listening to Dandelion is much like wandering through someone else’s subconscious, brushing past fragments of melody, mood and evocation as you move from room to room. Tuma’s trick is to make deeply familiar sounds – a music box, a few guitar chords, the plink of banjo – sound mysterious, meaningful and, perhaps, a bit frightening. The music box that plays gently in “San Luis Free 2E” is fraught with emotion, a scrap of memory that evokes childhood innocence, even while surrounding it with an ominous hiss. Likewise, “Old Woman” submerges the strum of guitar in cloudy overtones, dissonance building a wall between the listener and the resolution he or she seeks. There’s a sense of loss as familiar, well-loved sounds recede into the distance.

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Here he is playing some non-album material with a bunch of Chicago luminaries (well, a coupla guys from Califone anyway).