Album Review: I Am A New Tie Wearing

Juddy originally started off as a guitarist in punk bands before discovering Love Junkie by Sonnyboy, which inspired him to invest in a MIDI keyboard and pull together an album which is apparently influenced by his love of mid 90’s video games. Mind you, even then those games must have been retro, as the sounds being utilised on this have a much better fit with the decade before. Musically this a somewhat unusual mix and while we have elements which fit within the ambient/New Age genres this is tempered with pop and real songs which to my ears would have benefited from not having the synthetic percussion which does not really work as a dance beat and actually detracts from the simplistic beauty of the material.

This is not the album of a seasoned keyboard player out to show off virtuoso skills but instead is about creating a mood, taking an idea and following it to the logical conclusion and in that way this works well. He layers different keyboard sounds that combine together to create different melody lines, and it is not unusual to have four or more different keyboards as he builds up the sound. Although simple, the very naivety of this is appealing and relaxing, as this is not a difficult album to listen to, and Juddy has created songs which are quite different to each other, something which can be a problem for some solo artists. This is because each song is far more than someone meandering around on keyboards waiting for an idea to come to them, then calling it done. While it may not give the listener a complete sense of direction it allows them to come on the journey and it will be interesting to see how Juddy moves on from here with his next release.