https://www.blogfoolk.com/2023/08/malcom-holcombe-bits-pieces-proper.html

Malcom Holcombe – Bits & Pieces (Proper Music/Need to Know, 2023)

August 20, 2023

It all comes back to the core with Malcom Holcombe, a revival of the American folk-country scene, who has always gone his own way. Rarefied, hoarse voice, narrator's vocal approach, with incredible phonetic effort, full and clear guitar, supported with the tenacity of those who cannot do without it, of those who live for that thing: reporting their visions in songs, facing others with singing and telling your whole truth (“Bits and Pieces”). The grace within which all this is framed, however, is something else. And the grace of Hocombe – born in 1955 and with around twenty albums, starting from the mid-nineties – is what can be recognized in the fundamental details. Not only in the timbre of the voice - always strained and at the limit, which is now a distinctive sign to say the least - but in the guitar style: or rather, in its raw, basic, remote and slightly different sound (tending towards lameness), free of any artifice, even the most banal, stuck on fingerpicking to orchestrate the structure of his story (“Happy Wonderland”). Listening to it is like imagining a form in which only the voice and the string mix, like a tangle of threads, a composite sign whose deep groove is perceived but which can only be understood by reading it (“Bring to fly”). To tell the truth, “Bits & Pieces”, composed of thirteen extraordinary songs, includes several instruments. And this is an interesting aspect that proves what we were talking about earlier: each instrument has the function of confirming that particular composition, that indissoluble matrix that draws every reflection, every drop of blood from the two primary elements (“Another sweet deal”). Playing almost all the instruments (dobro, harmonica, mandola, banjo) is "the music shadow of Malcom", i.e. the producer of this album Jared Tyler, who has collaborated with Holcombe since 1999 and can boast (assuming he is interested) acquaintances highly respected in the American folk scene, having collaborated with Nickel Creek, Wilco, John Hammond, Shelby Lynne and several others. It is said that he is able to understand – he and a few others – what Holcombe really has in his head and, therefore, to best interpret its resonances, harmonies and rhythms. Brian Brinkerhof produced the album together with him, and managed to bring Malcom's story closer – albeit very delicately – to a more American roots area (“Rubbin' Elbow”). In general - and after careful reflection - this slide towards slightly softer atmospheres is not unpleasant: the movement is delicate and has almost exclusively a positive effect, which alternates with great respect the above-mentioned grace (naked and raw, primordial, powerful and enthralling ) with a slightly more comprehensible, easier beauty: perhaps lighter and more compelling (“Bootstraps”). It could be the right form for an album that represents a sort of further rebirth for the North Carolina musician. “Further” because his life was a cyclical flow of redemptions (alcohol etc.) which, punctually (and fortunately), they enveloped the albums that followed one another with a surprising cadence. “Rebirth” because this time Malcom fought against cancer and only with his guitar could he tell us about his new life, the new stage that his vision has reached (“Fill those shoes”): always with very little candor and just a few asides of cordiality, but with extraordinary melodies which, like the sharp edges of his voice, would satisfy even the most refined. Each song seems like an epiphany: each step of the story seems driven by a different force, which takes shape within perfect harmonizations ("Another sweet deal") - perfectly calibrated to his timbre of voice - and barely hinted at arrangements ("Bring to fly" ).