Tyler Higgins - Blue Mood (2018)

Known primarily as a guitarist, Tyler Higgins’ skill as a multi-instrumentalist is very much on display in “Blue Mood” – with the late night feel of the album’s cinematic arrangements. This Atlanta native’s approach is an intuitive synthesis of traditional folk, blues, and jazz material through the filter of experimental techniques. Each one of these ingredients is disembodied in order to create a music with no defined name, denying the general tendency to easy labels. It is a personal style that works like film music – distinct from a clear genre the focus is instead on the mood and feel of the music. While instrumental, the music is presented in song format — each piece a miniature that finishes when a particular mood installs itself in our imagination. It unfolds like a road movie with the varying instrumentation of lap steel, mellotron, harmonica, Paul Steven’s brush drums, and Ellen Higgins’ wordless vocals bringing different scenes into focus. Song titles such as “Motel TV”, “Groceries, Milk, Cigarettes”, or “Slow Night” lends the album a visual quality that perfectly resonates with the cover photo by Todd Hido. What results has a sincerity that takes the carpet out from under us instantly. Like a faded polaroid, “Blue Mood” highlights the beauty of the unpolished work.