Power pop; indie rock

14 MP3 Songs
POP: Power Pop, ROCK: Modern Rock



Details:
What does it sound like when a law professor takes up songwriting at age 60 and partners with a group of twenty-something experienced rock and jazz musicians? Hank Perrittâs first album, Wind Will Fill the Sails, provides the answer:

A new genre, âLaw Rock.â

Law Rock comprises a broad range of music styles, anchored by the diverse experiences of a song writer who has taught several thousand law students, analyzed insurgency and nationbuilding, flown airplanes and sailed boats, worked for four Presidents of the United States, run for the United States Congress, and written fifteen books.

The unusual breadth of Hankâs experience permits him to explore a much wider range of subject matter than is accessible to younger singer-songwriters. The album has 14 songs, tied together by Hankâs evocative, concrete lyrics, and distinguished by styles ranging from traditional pop-rock to technopop and jazz. They sing of the struggles that ambitious and sensitive young people face when they seek signals about their merit, feedback about their aspirations, and encouragement to pursue their dreams from peers and professors. They sing of euphoria about completing rights of passage and about student teams who work to build peace in remote parts of the world. They sing of self-reliance and of the sadness flowing from those who give up and destroy themselves. They sing of the interaction of musicians separated by nearly two generations. One sings in the native language of a small group of guerrilla insurgents who fought for freedom.

Tim Sanduskyâs smooth, young voice on eight of the songs complements Hankâs much rougher voice on six. The strong rock beats of Tethered by Today contrast with the sweet modern waltz flow of It's Time for a Skunk, the technopop style of Kosovo Disco, and the richness of Rim Clicks and Cow Bells, in which a modern rock band periodically morphs into a dance band of the 1940s. Only here will one find a mellow jazz beat on a record together with a martial ballad sung in the Albanian language. Pretty melodies predominate.

The songs were produced, performed, recorded and mixed in Tim Sanduskyâ Studio Ballistico, featuring Jamie Gallagher on a rock-band drumset, Hank and Tim on the clarinet and keyboard, Tim on the saxophone, acoustic and electric guitar and bass, Darren Garvey on a variety of melodic and non-melodic percussion instruments, Matt Topic on the trumpet, Ben Shanbaum on the trombone, Sarah Holtschlag on the musical saw, Aaron Allietta on the keyboard, and Lola Parker Mann on the violin/fiddle.

For more information, see www.myspace.com/modofacprof, and www.modofac.com.