JEREMY GARRETT

JEREMY GARRETT
CIRCLES

Organic Records
OR18742

This is an adventurous and powerful outing from Jeremy Garrett, best known as fiddler for the Infamous Stringdusters. When not touring with the ’Dusters, he’s an innovative singer/songwriter. During solo performances, he electronically loops instruments and vocals to create a multi-element sound well-suited to his impassioned performance style.

Here, Garrett largely uses more basic studio overdubbing to good effect. Indeed, a major factor of the album’s creative success comes in emphasizing unadorned acoustic sounds. However, there are notable exceptions, such as Garrett’s aptly-named experimental-style instrumental “Oracle,” the haunting multi-layered strings on the CD’s title-track, and the choir-like vocals behind “The Highway.”

With its contemporary singer-songwriter vibe, championed by Garrett’s surging rhythm guitar playing and soaring vocals, Circles is not an album for most traditionalists. Yet, Jeremy’s fiddling and mandolin playing maintain a strong roots influence throughout. (The unaccompanied Scots-Irish fiddle passage in “Baker’s Jam” is a particular delight.) The album is largely born of collaborations between Garrett and a host of friends who are also seasoned songwriters: Darrell Scott, Josh Shilling, Donna Ulisse (who co-wrote the poignant “Circles”), John Weisberger, and Oliver Wood.

Special praise must go to Jeremy and his co-producer Billy Hume, who’s also responsible for the superb engineering and resulting live-in-your-living-room sound. The quality and immediacy of Jeremy Garrett’s music deserve nothing less. (Organic Records, P.O. Box 829, Arden, NC 28704, www.organic-records.com.)RDS