Paint a Room

Chris Cohens mastery of gently astonishing songwriting deepens on his fourth album, Paint a Room. His solo releases up until now have arrived at a slower clip, with several years between each accounting for the strides made from album to album. With Paint a Room, Cohens psychedelic soft rock trappings are joined by airy horn and woodwind arrangements, as well as detours into bossa nova, ambient jazz, and the faintest impressions of prog rock influence. Opening track "Damage" is perhaps the most striking confluence of all these new ideas, with a horn arrangement from esteemed multi-instrumentalist and composer Jeff Parker ornamenting Cohens modulating chords and breathy vocals. Its an exceptionally light musical counterpart to the tunes heavy, dread-soaked lyrics, but this interesting contrast becomes the songs central focus. "Sunever" has a bubbly, singsong melody with lilting violin and psychedelic stabs of Byrds-like electric guitar, another captivating juxtaposition of sounds. As the album goes on, Cohen wanders through moments of breezy bossa nova on "Laughing" and the peppy, plastic grooves of "Physical Address," nervous jangly rock on "Wishing Well," woozy Tropicalia on "Cobb Estate," and an unexpected collision of cloudy piano pop and Beefheart-informed chaos on "Dogs Face." As with all of Cohens work, every change in musical temperature is so controlled that even the jarring moments feel pleasant and gracious. Cohen uses Paint a Room to circle through a deceptively wide spectrum of ideas and arrangements, organizing his various strange and beautiful sounds in a way that keeps drawing the listeners attention back, like trying to focus your eyes on something just out of view and figure out exactly what youre looking at. ~ Fred Thomas