Dan Weltman - Rivers In My Mind (2022) [Hi-Res]

Rivers In My Mind is the arresting debut solo album from Snails songwriter Dan Weltman, branching away from his band's quicksilver psych-pop into darker emotional terrain while retaining the same gift for a melody that seeds and blooms in the listener's memory. Ranging widely through folk, country and blues influences, many of these songs feel like well-worn classics in those idioms, until a surprise lyrical turn or sidestepping chord change snaps the attention back to a truly unique and contemporary voice. Released by Glass Modern and produced by Lukas Drinkwater (Emily Barker), Weltman filters american influences (1960's Greenwich Village via 1970's widescreen country) through the same gently surreal English lens once peered into by Ray Davies, Bill Fay and Nick Drake among others. The result is an at-times heady carousel of unguarded emotions, as he explains: "I'd never before been this comically lonely, heartbroken and needing of solace. My only choice was to surrender, drop all my bullshit and start again from zero." Meanwhile, trumpet, accordion, pedal steel and piano add confident but restrained colour to Weltman's unvarnished vocals and finger-picked Martin parlour guitar.