My friend and Rolling Stone magazine editor Anthony DeCurtis, wrote this piece on my new album Curve and Shake which drops August 12. I am posting it here in full because it is so, so beautifully written. Thank you Anthony.
It’s always a deep pleasure to have the opportunity to write about Walter Salas-Humara’s songs, which I’ve listened to with the greatest rewards for nearly thirty years now. Still, it’s a little embarrassing for me as well. His music reaches me on such a personal level that it sometimes feels as if I’m revealing too much about myself when I engage it in public. Emotional honesty comes instinctively to Walter; he is as open-hearted a songwriter -- and a person -- as you could find. If that same level of honesty does not come naturally to you, his songs will present a challenge. It’s a challenge you should take: to be more vulnerable, to be more aware of others, to rise to love. It’s a challenge that you should welcome.
Of course, Walter would not be as brilliant as he is if he did not understand how perplexing and difficult, even sometimes impossible, all those aspirations can be to achieve. That, to me at least, is what his new album Curve and Shake is all about: the struggle to sustain hope and remain available to possibility even as our lives “twist, bend, curve and shake.” The ephemerality of so much that we want to believe is permanent about our lives is beautifully captured in the floating musical landscapes that Walter conjures for this album. With the Silos and on some of his solo work, Walter has defined a roots-rock sound that helped bring the music we know as Americana into the modern age. Here on “The Craziest Feeling,” “I Love That Girl” and “Counting on You,” the instrumental settings are softer and more floating. Their impact, however, is no less strong.
That sense of being untethered from certainties, of floating, permeates Curve and Shake. The feeling is gentle, not quite scary, but with an element of unease. Letting go of expectations combines aspects of sadness, freedom and even wonder. How and why did things go so wrong? But if the world is so fluid, perhaps they can go right again. “Does it have to be so hard?... So many things can go wrong if you try and understand them,” Walter sings in “Uncomplicated.” The implication is that letting go and giving yourself over to life’s inevitable twists and turns, its curves and shakes, rather than trying to control them is a likelier path to happiness.
Another theme that runs through the album is the willingness to love. Time takes its toll on our hearts, but the desire for connection must never be lost. “Either we are one or we are nothing,” runs the lyric of “What We Can Bring,” and that conviction sits at the heart of the album. (You can hear it also in “Counting on You.”) Its resonance extends far beyond the two members of a couple. “We don’t ever seem to care/We don’t ever seem to share a thing,” applies to the culture at large as fully as it does to lovers. The ability to “see what we can bring,” to acknowledge the virtues of others as well as ourselves, makes it possible for our true humanity to be shared.
The yearning for connection arises again on the lovely sing-along “Satellite,” when Walter asks, “Can it hold me tight?/Can I trust it now/Or is it just an empty vow?/Send a signal down, like a satellite.” It’s a song filled with beauty, promise and the marvel of space, the infinity both outside us and within us. Conversely, “Hoping for a Comeback” summons a litany of small, exquisite pleasures – “smoking a Cohiba,” “browning in the oven,” “strong black coffee,” “a long, hot shower” – as reminders of everything life has to offer. A renewed susceptibility to pleasure is the comeback the singer longs for, a true and enlivening sense of expectation, a revived engagement with the generosity of life.
Finally, there is Walter’s voice, an instrument that effortlessly conveys both intimacy and depth of feeling. Like so many great singers, he communicates as much by what he doesn’t say as by what he does. His raspy tone provides a rich counterpoint to the genial surrealism, the offhand magical realism, of so many of his lyrics. His words are presented as if they’re describing straightforward events, but they speak a rich, associative poetry that evokes emotions more so than facts. His guitar playing is similarly adaptable – raw and stinging one moment, dreamy and droning the next.
This extraordinary combination of gifts has made Walter one of the standout songwriters and performers of our time. To say the Curve and Shake is some of the best work he has ever done is to say something really meaningful – and something, for all of our benefits, that is simply true. – Anthony DeCurtis
The album will be for sale on iTunes, etc, on August 12, but the full WAV files are available at http://waltersalashumara.com/downloads
It’s always a deep pleasure to have the opportunity to write about Walter Salas-Humara’s songs, which I’ve listened to with the greatest rewards for nearly thirty years now. Still, it’s a little embarrassing for me as well. His music reaches me on such a personal level that it sometimes feels as if I’m revealing too much about myself when I engage it in public. Emotional honesty comes instinctively to Walter; he is as open-hearted a songwriter -- and a person -- as you could find. If that same level of honesty does not come naturally to you, his songs will present a challenge. It’s a challenge you should take: to be more vulnerable, to be more aware of others, to rise to love. It’s a challenge that you should welcome.
Of course, Walter would not be as brilliant as he is if he did not understand how perplexing and difficult, even sometimes impossible, all those aspirations can be to achieve. That, to me at least, is what his new album Curve and Shake is all about: the struggle to sustain hope and remain available to possibility even as our lives “twist, bend, curve and shake.” The ephemerality of so much that we want to believe is permanent about our lives is beautifully captured in the floating musical landscapes that Walter conjures for this album. With the Silos and on some of his solo work, Walter has defined a roots-rock sound that helped bring the music we know as Americana into the modern age. Here on “The Craziest Feeling,” “I Love That Girl” and “Counting on You,” the instrumental settings are softer and more floating. Their impact, however, is no less strong.
That sense of being untethered from certainties, of floating, permeates Curve and Shake. The feeling is gentle, not quite scary, but with an element of unease. Letting go of expectations combines aspects of sadness, freedom and even wonder. How and why did things go so wrong? But if the world is so fluid, perhaps they can go right again. “Does it have to be so hard?... So many things can go wrong if you try and understand them,” Walter sings in “Uncomplicated.” The implication is that letting go and giving yourself over to life’s inevitable twists and turns, its curves and shakes, rather than trying to control them is a likelier path to happiness.
Another theme that runs through the album is the willingness to love. Time takes its toll on our hearts, but the desire for connection must never be lost. “Either we are one or we are nothing,” runs the lyric of “What We Can Bring,” and that conviction sits at the heart of the album. (You can hear it also in “Counting on You.”) Its resonance extends far beyond the two members of a couple. “We don’t ever seem to care/We don’t ever seem to share a thing,” applies to the culture at large as fully as it does to lovers. The ability to “see what we can bring,” to acknowledge the virtues of others as well as ourselves, makes it possible for our true humanity to be shared.
The yearning for connection arises again on the lovely sing-along “Satellite,” when Walter asks, “Can it hold me tight?/Can I trust it now/Or is it just an empty vow?/Send a signal down, like a satellite.” It’s a song filled with beauty, promise and the marvel of space, the infinity both outside us and within us. Conversely, “Hoping for a Comeback” summons a litany of small, exquisite pleasures – “smoking a Cohiba,” “browning in the oven,” “strong black coffee,” “a long, hot shower” – as reminders of everything life has to offer. A renewed susceptibility to pleasure is the comeback the singer longs for, a true and enlivening sense of expectation, a revived engagement with the generosity of life.
Finally, there is Walter’s voice, an instrument that effortlessly conveys both intimacy and depth of feeling. Like so many great singers, he communicates as much by what he doesn’t say as by what he does. His raspy tone provides a rich counterpoint to the genial surrealism, the offhand magical realism, of so many of his lyrics. His words are presented as if they’re describing straightforward events, but they speak a rich, associative poetry that evokes emotions more so than facts. His guitar playing is similarly adaptable – raw and stinging one moment, dreamy and droning the next.
This extraordinary combination of gifts has made Walter one of the standout songwriters and performers of our time. To say the Curve and Shake is some of the best work he has ever done is to say something really meaningful – and something, for all of our benefits, that is simply true. – Anthony DeCurtis
The album will be for sale on iTunes, etc, on August 12, but the full WAV files are available at http://waltersalashumara.com/downloads
