Son Of Dave - 02 (2006)

O2 is an entrancing mixture of cotton-pickin’ blues, vocalising beat-box, hard-breathing folk, steamy funk and even modern R&B. It is like a rusty freight train from another era that is launched and oiled by Darvill’s quirky compositions and his explosive playing. The atmosphere is both intimate and convivial, reflecting as best it can the informal one-man-shows the Canadian is famous for. Most of the songs are originals and all are composed with a foot in the distant past and another indisputably in the present.
This present is reflected in Darvill’s dynamic beat-boxing, his subtle samplings and even some surprising electronic grooves. The overlaying texture of the singer’s works has inspired some surprising analogies: “It’s a Beck meets Beefheart weird child human beat-box with harmonica filter kinda thing”, drools one critic. Or “Tom Waits meets John Lee Hooker on a night out with Killa Kella,” (one of Britain’s beat-box stars). Heady comparisons, but hardly unmerited as the maverick artist offers a crescendo of sounds that conjures an orchestra of bluesmen.
The outstanding track “San Francisco”, for example, reflects Darvill’s dexterity. His guitar-picking, floor-stomping and raw harmonica-blowing vie with his moans, high or low-pitched singing and beat-box virtuosity. With “Devil Take My Soul”, the Canadian émigré is complemented by singer Martina Topley Bird, but she doesn’t provide the sulky or whiskey-tinted voice that would enhance Darvill’s own moody contribution. For the moment, the bluesman is a whiskey best tasted on its own.
Be that as it may, one can only be impressed by Darvill’s rich evocation of different moods: from the melancholic “Crossroads Blues” (an inspired take on the Robert Johnson standard), to the optimism of “Life is so Easy Now” and the bouncy “Please Slow Down”, the artist creates a Bayou atmosphere mixing the grit, sweat and tears of a distant past. His flashbacks to a darker era from which the blues were born reminded this reviewer of the field hollers, and other ancestors of this genre. But when I brought up the parallel with Darvill at the 2007 Printemps de Bourges festival where he was playing, he gave me a quizzical look and denied there was any such thought in his mind when composing. As one noted author who recently passed away wrote, so it goes.