Search - Nathan Moore :: In His Own Worlds

Love & hope are paradoxes - strong as the Acropolis' foundation and frail as old wheat in dry hands. Both have a magical certitude that's built by childish faith in things unseen. Few songwriters capture this irreconcilable dichotomy like Nathan Moore, who taps into the strength and unutterable ache of hope & love with a quill dipped in dreams & contradictions. In His Own Worlds is Moore at his finest, which is saying something. Rare is the time Moore's music hasn't filled my eyes with tears. Like Bob Dylan & Elliott Smith, he's continually fearless in the face of dark, truthful mirrors. His metaphysical striptease dresses the listener down, and naked together we're born anew in trembling laughter. Here, Nathan does a soft shoe with the Cosmic Be All And End All, the tunesmith's Stephen Hawking sussing out a theory of everything. He uses ecclesiastical ideas but never in a way that's cloying or familiar. Instead, Jung's invisible world unfurls in his songs, God smiling at us behind the trees. Moore's willingness to engage big ideas - knowing full well he's in a bear-wrestling match - emboldens us. If Jacob wrestled an angel then maybe so can we. Worlds has the blessed synergy of early '70s California country-rock. Every instrument and arrangement underscores things, building emotion with a spare piano, plaintive pedal steel, thoughtful percussion and beautiful backing vocals that give the record muscle and motion. His sad men in jam bands and angels of delight long for peace, home and the blooming delight of another's touch. Nathan tells their tales in a way that lifts us from the malaise of the everyday. You hear it in the sudden skyward swoop on "O New Day" or the bittersweet lilt of "When A Woman". Everywhere what was hidden is laid bare, cleaned by the light in his music. His preoccupation with prestidigitation recognizes how much of life is illusion and sleight-of-hand. But, our bard still exclaims, "The world really is magic. Nothing could be clearer." Maybe it's magic AND smoke & mirrors, a conundrum from which springs all the wonderful and terrible things of this world. And right there in the middle of it all stands Nathan Moore, chronicler of full glasses and empty hands, damp eyed & smiling inside the swirling notes. It is a great joy to find him there. -Dennis Cook