Daniel Martin Moore: Stray Age

By: Dennis Cook

To reference Nick Drake as a touchstone for a new, young singer-songwriter is such a hoary cliché now that I wouldn’t dare breath dear departed Nick’s name if Daniel Martin Moore didn’t remind me of him so very deeply. There is a branch of music that seems plucked from some greater firmament than most common fare. There is the soft slap of creek water, the breath of winter wind, the quick fading heat of a kiss – in short, a tactile naturalness that makes it seem like these songs have always been part of us, part of humanity’s big songbook, there to glide along with our solitary walks, to flicker in candlelight, to comfort and prick us in the quietude we share together. Often this type of music isn’t complex, but like cooking, music often finds its soul in simplicity. Stray Age (Sub Pop), the debut by this Cold Spring, Kentucky discovery, is built around acoustic guitar and choice accompaniment (hushed percussion, upright bass, bright splashes of violin & vibraphone) and Moore’s warmly intoxicating voice – a swirl of Drake’s low purr, Harry Connick Jr.’s velvet phrasing and the sort of x-factor one attributes to Cat Stevens or Tim Buckley. Taken together it’s a sound that strolls past one’s defenses to plant hopeful seeds like “To go where you have been/ To be where you are again/ Come be close and be rested/ Darling, come be close and be rested.” These tunes arrive like koans written by the heart, things spoken only in whispers and sighs, failures and hopes uttered with understandable trepidation. Without question, we need artists bold or naïve enough to speak these ideas into existence, and all the better when they sail this wisdom into our lives on such gentle currents. Able to nail Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” and surround that rose with a bouquet of equal beauty, Moore is a major new arrival. Ignore Stray Age and cheat yourself of something special.

Check out Moore performing “Stray Age” at the Southgate House in Newport, KY.

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