Eamon Fogarty has no guile. He is as true as a bird singing in the trees. His music, like life itself, contains the beautiful and the grotesque. Some artists demand love from their audience. I dont know how or why it works but I love Eamons music. I feel protective of it. When something that powerful calls out… you should pick up the phone." If someone were to present disturbing news to you in a smooth and dazzling way, youd expect the effect to be jarring. But thats not the case with the music of New Hampshire-born composer, lyricist, and singer Eamon Fogarty. As he delivers lyrics imbued with equal parts humor and dread, the rich timbre and sureness of his baritone belie the dark things hes often singing about. That tensionbetween beauty and destruction, humor and dreadis the driving force behind Fogartys new album, Blue Values, offering an oddly elegant expression of the way were all muddling through such tensions all the time.

• 12" Vinyl