Steve Wells: Songs for Summer Rain (digital outlets)

 |   |  <1 min read

Steve Wells: Songs for Summer Rain (digital outlets)

This artist's name will be familiar if you remember the hugely popular rock band Fur Patrol who had a number one single with Lydia in 2001 and relocated to Melbourne. They started at the bottom over there, but still toured and recorded.

Guitarist Wells quit the band in 2004 and went to Paris with his family where he started a successful career as a fashion photographer.

But here he is again with an album on which guitar is the least obvious element on a collection of (mostly) instrumentals which have a dreamlike, gravity defying feel (Under the Waves), ease towards elegant electro-prog (Makeshift Heart), cinematic ambience (See Softer,), moody prog-rock (Not What You Want, Look Out the Window) . . .

For anyone who has explored similar albums which have appeared over the past few decades, Songs for Summer Rain is perhaps more interesting than essential.

But if Wells wanted a calling card for soundtracks, sound design in films or simply to nudge his way into ambient music he's got one here.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Chris Stapleton: Starting Over (Universal/digital outlets)

Chris Stapleton: Starting Over (Universal/digital outlets)

If you didn't know what he looked like, how might you picture songwriter Chris Stapleton from knowing his songs had been covered by Adele and he's co-written with Ed Sheeran, Peter Frampton and... > Read more

Daniel Johnston: Is and Always Was (Feraltone)

Daniel Johnston: Is and Always Was (Feraltone)

I'm probably not alone in thinking of Daniel Johnston, not just as some untutored genius and outsider artist, but as someone whose life has often been pitiable and sad. That he is disturbed is... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . DAVID MARKS: The boy who left the beach too soon

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . DAVID MARKS: The boy who left the beach too soon

He came out of Erie, Pennsylvania and was of Jewish-Italian heritage. At age five or thereabouts he was enthralled by the mandolin playing of his grandfather Carlo and the singing of those he... > Read more

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LIZZY MERCIER DESCLOUX

So who was it rocked into downtown New York in the mid Seventies with her head full of Rimbaud? Who fell in with the CBGB crowd, had Richard Hell as a partner who saw her as his muse, and whose... > Read more