My Review: Boulder Fields - With All the Other Ghosts

Boulder Fields - With All the Other Ghosts

Even musicians have a pedigree and it is often the basis of a series of certainties that envelop the listener, removing fears and uncertainties. The Scottish Cam Fraser's is impressive, a wonderful ride into the territories of what is difficult to define but easy to enjoy. It is the latter that surrounds, defines and transports the experience of his music towards a truly remarkable form of relaxation. We are in the zone of a cosy, gentle, polite indie folk, adept at approaching even other genres almost surreptitiously, with class and kindness. One finds, therefore, scattered along the eleven butterflies full of sensual and sometimes slightly melancholic waves, traces of lo-fi, of a folk that seems to scratch itself with rock mixtures, but always in a whisper. 

The Edinburgh star is joined by musicians who manage to enhance the minimalist wave of songs to make the whole thing sound like the work of a band with thousands of years behind it, when in fact it is a debut, at least under that name. The Old Scribe emphasises how the world seems to be criss-crossed by these landscapes, by these protagonists of stories that glue you into an accommodating and profound reflection. Much happens with pints of beer, crowded tables, long gazes, hands grasping clods of earth in the parks and the distinct feeling that the instruments translate the oscillations of these life experiences. Everything smells of permanence in real life, without temptation but taking responsibility for giving dignity to the happenings. 

Cam whispers, sings with a mature voice touched by magic magnets, with the ability to modulate it with great technique, using the choruses well, never intrusive, while the piano, mandolin, acoustic guitar and organ are the conductors of strategic flows full of warmth, soldiers with coloured feathers that make their splendid figure both in city stories and when the spaces offer the joy of nature. The acoustic bass is a constant amazement, as are the brushes of the drums, which seem to drive the undulations towards the applause of the clouds.

Warm, physical, metaphysical, emblematic, essential, the album offers mental, visual panoramas, in a crowded collective of feelings in constant boiling, where Cam himself throws salt in with his experience gained over all these years, in which he trafficked with his old band The Cateran, supporting Nirvana in the UK in 1989. But no chaos, no discomfort to pour into our ears, but rather messages carried by pigeons educated in patience, in the most sensual storytelling imaginable...

There are no songs to be preferred, but a set of fascinations to be preserved under the harsh skin of our reality: if you are looking for a solid partnership with well-being, this work will make you very happy indeed...

   Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

1st July 2024

https://boulderfields.bandcamp.com/album/with-all-the-other-ghosts