Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3/5 Released: February 27, 2007 Reviewer: Tyrone Castanho |
Most fans of the Beastie Boys, Beck, or the Beach Boys normally wouldn’t see the correlation between these artists and a Japanese-Hawaiian Latino born in Detroit. But with the opening tracks of Brand New By Tomorrow, you might recognise the synthesized funk rhythms similar to the Beastie’s 1992 album Check Your Head or the acoustic melodies of Jack Johnson. Having signed to Johnson’s Brushfire label, long-time producer Money Mark set out to create an album that would draw double-takes from the expectant underground.
‘Color of Your Blues’ immediately paints the picture of that very album, inspired by the feeling we’ve all experienced when heart-break crashes your love party, overstays its welcome, and steals all your beers. In fact, the entire CD has been dedicated to the process of accepting failed relationships, so for those of you whose game just wasn’t good enough, it’s a perfect fit.
Money Mark is a multi-talented instrumentalist expressing his musical talent with a touch of humble integrity, recognisable in songs like ‘Summer Blue,’ and no song on this CD is shoved down your throat. ‘Pretend To Sleep’ is a comforting duet between reedy acoustic guitar and pensive piano and it leads into a relaxing jazz guitar piece, ‘My Loss, Your Gain,’ that seems destined for summer-time repeats. Even with the Monty Pythonic trumpet tune of ‘Eyes That Ring,’ it’s not hard to see that there has been some kind of growth here. His song-writing extends beyond the keyboard and into the lyrics themselves; ” I guess there’s no way to avoid a broken heart / but what I can say is I will never go very far” comes from the title track ‘Brand New By Tomorrow’ and one gets the sense that it’s somehow prophetic. This is a brand new Money Mark; could he go far and possibly make third base, or face the horrible indifference of rejection? Only tomorrow will tell.
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