Tom Eaton: weathering
Heart Dance Records

Many artists have seen their recordings enhanced by the mastering and production artistry of Tom Eaton, and the New Hampshire-based musician has also played on countless albums by others. Since 2009, he's also collaborated with Windham Hill Records founder Will Ackerman, a recent example the guitarist's stellar (and Grammy-nominated) Positano Songs, which Eaton co-produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered, and to which he contributed piano and bass. But let's not forget that Eaton's also a solo artist who's created a body of work that would hold up solidly even if none of those other accomplishments had occurred.

Testifying to that is his latest release, weathering, an hour-long collection thematically grounded in the saga of losing one's way and eventually finding the way back. Eaton plays piano, basses, guitars, synthesizers, accordion, and percussion on the release, which was recorded at Universal Noise Storage in Newburyport and at his own Sounds & Substance studio, a two-story converted barn located in rural New Hampshire. Needless to say, some of the inspiration for his music derives from the pastoral splendour he and his family experience every time they step outside.

Setting the stage is a melancholy, reverb-soaked piano prelude that actually arrived two years after the track it introduces. Blossoming gradually out of a lilting piano figure, “the lost years” is a veritable Master Class in the art of mood-building and sound design. Eaton demonstrates the sensitivity of a landscape painter in his arrangement of tonal colour when piano's slowly augmented by percussion, synthesizers, guitar—every choice meticulously placed and used to amplify the stately solemnity of the composition. Sadness permeates the material, yet the faint promise of hope emerges too. Everything's played by him, of course, using layering and multi-tracking, except for strummed guitars by his son Huck. Anyone looking for an introduction to Eaton's music could do a whole lot worse than start with this magnificent creation.

In “above the mad river,” Eaton's desire for peace draws him outdoors to absorb its silence and listen for guidance. Hope emerges here also, this time in the form of gorgeous synthesizer and accordion textures that accompany the track's central piano figure. As with much of Eaton's music, a sense of mystery infuses its slow-burn, as well as a powerful evocation of place. Here it's easy to imagine oneself at the centre of a forest, with a stream distantly audible, sunlight streaming through the trees, and the sounds of nature all around. While many of the tracks hew to the template established by these opening two, Eaton occasionally mixes things up. Note, for example, the prominent melodic role given to fretless bass in the title track.

July 2023