photo preview from flickr. photo by tammylo.

Jai Agnish: Awake When You Dream (free audit/download here)

Jai's music is listenable and approachable, and because of this, it is more than a pleasant surprise. Since I live in Asia and my access to the latest English-language music is limited, I don't have a lot to compare it with. What immediately springs to mind, though, because of its vocal-layering and subdued tone is that it is similar to The Weepies. Words are given an appropriate background, a kind of cushion if you will, so that as they are sprinkled or flung before you, you are relaxed enough and ready enough to catch their impact, their full charge. The charge of the lightness of words brigade that skips the light fandango and leaves trellises for us to enjoy. Words are suitably inaugurated, as they should be in all good songwriting.

It's a meandering, gentle weave of sound and sight, like a bike ride or country roads ride in a car that may break down and need towing, across the landscapes and shifting sandscapes of family and urban and other things that are livable, lovable, laughable. His somewhat soft but clearly audible voice, backed with overlays of and stretches of carefully crafted acoustic guitar and occasional mellotron arrangements and vocals by Peg Carlin, informs the listener without contest or confrontation. He is obviously trying to collate in these confusing times. Lively enough and with words that tell little stories and conjure up places and people, with words that capture the fleetingness of it all, seemingly acknowledging even the fleetingness of the words themselves, the song collection has tinges of transcendentalism, poetic pit falls that pull us and tug at our mind that at times, too, must be childlike, down the Wonderland rabbit hole of the imagination and away from the Blunderland of our blesst social mess.

Phrases are elevated at times with repetition, sometimes unexpectedly, making us notice even prosaic phrases as having something worthy of note. I provide here some not-too-carefully sifted samples from the lyrics; perhaps you may feel compelled to drop by the above website for a listen to the whole album. I also [encase] what might be the theme or drift of the song in each case, although that is personal and someone else could interpret the song quite differently. Perhaps it is poetic confetti, picnic finger food, krill for blue whales — with no Ultimate Meaning intended.
(1) New Parade: Call up the press and stop the traffic -- — and make a New Parade. Everyone's here, and everyone's messed up [celebrating something?]
(2) Farview: Go inside and open up the door. Tell the man in there that you're ready for more. [staying open]
(3) Paradise: Trying to find my way to Paradise, to Paradise. Can't quite figure out this roadmap, there's too many signs. Tie me to the truck, maybe you can tow me there... Does it matter at all? [metaphor of driving in a car for the cosmic journey?]
(4) Walls: Walls above my head. [?] I guess it's best for the rest of us. Tears are in my eyes, but I can't cry. How high is this, anyhow? [consciousness? reality of emotion?]
(5) We Found Love: I found a new friend. We found love. How high does this love go? [love springs eternal]
(6) **Shopping Malls: Whose land is this, anyhow? Give it back to the animals, to the dinosaur age. How long til it all becomes walls, walls, shopping malls? You can buy anything in this shopping mall. [suburban mall sprawl]
(7) Your Dream: Quick, get out of bed. You can tell me all about your dreams later. I'll see you later. [morning routine, singing in the shower, sunshine after rain]
(8) India: Told our tour guide this journey's been sanitized. Crowds of people wander by aimlessly. Does anyone notice them? Does anyone notice me? [night time in Mumbai, heritage identity]
(9) Lightnings Bugs: They hung around almost for a week. They have me drive them down the street to the bagel shop... We sit out on the cliff by the lake just in time for the sunset... I wanted to tell you this story about this thing that I found... Is it the timing or the rhyming? Haven't really figured that out.... His toys are everywhere... [snippets of stories, starts of yarns -- it doesn't take too much to get a story going.]
(10) Parachutes: It's OK if you put on your boots and fly away... Into the sky, you and I... It's easy enough to get lost in all of these worlds. Hey, we forgot our parachutes. Hold on, falling, down. [the convergent and composite nature of reality, the inevitability and atemporality of death]
(11) An American: Just outside the city lines... She says she's an American... Puts in 60 hours a week... Play games with money... They heard the saints making noise... Then the war it begins... They dream of smoke, they dream of fire, they dream a vision... Her face is like the sun... It's sweaty on the trading floor... [American dream? statue of liberty? the inner battle?]

Links:
review at docstoc had this to say about him
Jai Agnish -
album at bandcamp