Martin Courtney – Many Moons – LP

“Many Moons” is a bright, lush, 10-song collection of soft psychedelia that recalls the Kinks and Big Star even as it probes the depths of his own life as a family man, father, and touring musician. The album is squinting-at-the-sun bright, full of subtle introspection, an elliptical document of Martin Courtney’s transition into family life and fatherhood.

His players on this album, including Jarvis Taveniere of Woods, who produced the album, and Julian Lynch and Matt Kallman, help bring a newfound sonic clarity, a brightness evidenced in ‘Northern Highway’. Songs are rounded out with orchestral arrangements, as evidenced in ‘Vestiges’, or the instrumental title track, a sweetly luxurious string and flute number that wouldn’t be out of place on a prime-era Pentangle record.

Courtney has long made a career of writing songs about what happens when your image of home is something you’re trying to hold on to, when the nostalgia that used to comfort you starts to feel unfamiliar.  On “Many Moons”, he’s moved through that. It’s not so much a rejection of nostalgia, but an embrace of what’s ahead.

Domino Records

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