VMAG Review
VMAG Review
It's pretty rare that I get absolutely floored by a CD and I've never gotten all that excited about a folk duo. With that said, I have now played Fuzzy Logic's disk Doing the Best I can about a million times and don't see hanging it up anytime soon. With Michael Cohen on guitar and Liz Sumner sharing her phenomenal voice, this duo have created one of the funniest, wittiest, beautiful recordings I have had the great fortune of acquiring.
In respect to sound, a Sunday with the Unitarians comes to mind. Which makes the songs that much more striking and remarkable for their content. Now there are some songs that fit the hip, New Agey feel Cohen and Sumner give off. Yeah "Bahia", "I Wish I Knew", "Scene of Your Crime" and "Lace Curtains" fit loosely into what I would expect from this disk (only better quality).
However, these four are merely a taste of what Fuzzy Logic pulls off with the other ten songs. With songs like "Ezekiel's Wheel", "Vampire", "Island Lullaby", "The Cat", and "Summer Samba" Cohen and Sumner become somewhat more inventive, blending styles and themes to wonderful effect. Folk, jazz, Pacific and Caribbean influences abound, but my favorite tunes on Doing the Best I can are the ones where Fuzzy Logic's startling wit and sense of fun take over. "Let's Be Beat" should be mandatory listening for a few dark clad , hipster-lite individuals I know. "Calling All Bars" hits the nail on the head so perfectly it almost isn't funny. Hear that, guys? What's your family doing tonight? Similarly, the title track is self-deprecating humor at its very best. The cutest track on the disk is "Firm Thighs" and is laugh out loud funny with its hilarious folky/do-wop chorus and lyrical patter. But. But. But, the hands down, winningest, bestest song I have heard in years is "Everything's A Conspiracy". Listening to this song is like reading a Robert Anton Wilson book on nitrous oxide. Rarely can such obvious wit hold up for an entire song. A near perfect creation.
If you have an intelligent, open mind run to find Doing the Best I can.
Usually I beg off reviewing recordings made by people I know personally, but I cannot rest unless I turn my readers on to a local product I have enjoyed very much and hope they will too. Both as a member of the audience and as a fellow participant in local presentations, I have enjoyed the group that calls itself Fuzzy Logic. Consisting of guitarist and songwriter Michael Cohen and vocalist Liz Sumner with several guest stars, Fuzzy Logic has created and performed some of the most unusual lyrics since Sondheim and even perhaps W.S. (Topsy Turvy) Gilbert.
Michael has been doing what he loves most for decades now. From time to time, he will freelance at doing scrimshaw, illustrating and cartooning--one, two or all of which activities might inspire within him the far out ideas he uses in his lyrics. To earn his major bread and cheese, he works as Senior Editor at Renaissance Publications, a new comic company.
Liz grew up to the scratchy sounds of big band recordings, especially those of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. Her non-musical career is that of grocery buyer for Northeast Cooperatives over in Brattleboro, VT. Michael and Liz met out west one fine day and the rest is the cause of this article.
In 1988, the two formed a quartet called Lip Service, offering their special brand of original music and lyrics to festivals and coffee houses in the Pacific Northwest to what is generally called "critical acclaim." Seattle radio audiences heard them on the air as did those tuned in to Sandy Bradley's Potluck program on NPR. As "Lip Service," they recorded two CDs out there in the Seattle area, and they moved to Marlborough, NH in 1994. Delighted with the fellow artists they found in this area, they became "Fuzzy Logic" and joined the others in the talent pool. Since then they have been heard frequently at Branch River Theatre productions in Marlborough, at the Wholly Note Coffee House in Peterborough, NH, with Just Desserts in Keene, NH, and at The Action Jazz Café in Action, MA.
Now they have issued their first CD for us in this region and whoever else in the other parts of the universe is interested in Good Music. <Fuzzy Logic: Doing the Best I Can> is its name and don't forget it.
Of the 14 selections on this CD, some are straight ballads like "Scene of Your Crime," some look to foreign shores like "Island Lullaby," and some are on-target satire like "Firm Thighs." What aids and abets immensely is the rich mezzo of Ms. Sumner and the talented guest stars from this area she brings into the proceedings: Steve Bourque (percussion), John Schindler (vocals and guitar), Glenn Austin (vocals and bass), Bobbi Volendorff (vocals), Mary Armstrong (vocals) and Rick Ruskin (guitar and engineer on "I Wish I Knew"). In short, this is a local product by people with real talent!
What I like especially about this act is the occasional new spin on an old expression. For example, take "I'm a saint with the patience of a sinner" in "Calling All Bars" and you might recall such inversions in the lyrics of Larry Hart back in the 1920s. By far the funniest of the lot is "Everything's a Conspiracy" in which every modern paranoia-inducing group is mentioned from the Illuminati to those who want to fluoridate our reservoirs. This is Gilbert's "I've got a little list" gone mad.It is also, I must add, an indication that Fuzzy Logic assumes its audience is a literate one.
Even the technical ends were handled by locals. The recording was made at Sleeping Gypsy Studios (Marlborough, NH), the mixing and mastering at Blue Planet Studios (East Swanzey, NH), the CD was produced at Front Porch Music (Keene, NH), and the entire project was created and coordinated by Schmutz Productions. (If the logic can be fuzzy, why shouldn't the group be schmutzy?)
But the value of the product is the music itself. Jolly, understandable (as opposed to the mumbled "authentic sound" of some singers), beautifully sung, well played. On Amazon.com, I would give this 5 stars. You judge for yourself.
Just when you thought it was all elevator music, along comes Fuzzy Logic with their debut CD, "Doing The Best I Can".
Fuzzy Logic is a duo: Liz Sumner on vocals, and Mike Cohen on guitar. They live in Marlborough, NH, and they recorded their CD at their own Sleeping Gypsy Studios. One of my complaints about a lot of music groups these days is their limited repertoire: all their songs sound the same. One cannot make this complaint about Fuzzy Logic. Mike writes most of the songs, and they are truly a diverse lot. Like Ray Davies, best work from his late-60's peak, Mike's songs are like short stories set to wonderfully catchy melodies. You find yourself humming them long after you've turned off your CD player.
"Ezekiel's Wheel", the album,s opening cut, has a beautiful melody line. Liz sings it perfectly straight, and you have to listen very closely to discover the song,s having some fun with UFOs.
After listening to "Let's Be Beat", you'll be ready to grab a beret and some bongos, and jump in a time machine for the beatnik coffeehouse scene circa 1959. Like Hipsville, dad! Songs like "Bahia", "Island Lullaby" and "Summer Samba" conjure up images of the South Seas: soft waves, swaying palms, calypso rhythms, easy laughter, romance and the abiding warmth of the sun. Rating: definitely 4 coconuts!
I wasn't prepared to like a song called "Vampire", but it's one of my favorite cuts on the album: a haunting melody that creates a near-hypnotic effect. Liz's vocal is compelling, walking a fine line between fear and obsession.
Great folk performers can do the serious stuff, and they can also do the funny stuff: one minute you're crying because of the lump in your throat, and the next minute because you're laughing so hard. It was true of The Limelighters and Steve Goodman, it's true of John Prine and Christine Lavin, and it is also true of Fuzzy Logic.
"Calling All Bars" chronicles one woman's efforts to track down that "no good cheap hood beer drinking man of mine, and "Firm Thighs" (written by Liz) muses upon what women need to attract men like flies. Both songs are hysterical, and be forewarned: once you hear em, it's almost impossible to get these tunes out of your head!I've always admired Mike's guitar work (he plays a mean mandolin, too), and for this studio recording, he also uses a synthesizer to create a slightly fuller sound. A lot of today's releases seem over-orchestrated to me-- a sure sign of a weak song. Here, the melodies are strong, the non-guitar instrumentation spare and effective (the ghostly chimes on "Vampire", that wonderful just-right sax solo on "Let's Be Beat").
Mike's lyrics have a kind of casual exactitude. Precise and imaginative, they advance the story and then delight you with unexpected rhymes. It's a little like watching Fred Astaire dance!
Mike's themes and rhythms are far-ranging, but Liz's vocals are more than up to the challenge. They range from the plaintive ("Lace Curtains") to the playful ("The Cat") to the flat-out comic ("Calling All Bars", "Firm Thighs"). Her phrasing on songs like "Scene Of Your Crime" creates an emotional link between listener and singer. It,s hard to imagine these songs being sung any other way.