Sky Writing is Zachary Cale's seventh album and his first one for new label Org Music. As far as I'm aware he is not related to either John or JJ.
The album opens with the plangent tones of Miles Ahead, Miles Behind that has heart worn vocals as Zachary wonders what happened along the way to lead him to this point all punctuated with some cool organ.
Cursed Spot is a slow thoughtful tale of what's gone wrong and all the evil that happened in that cursed place.
If I Knew The Name is the sort of line that many of us have had to deal with over the years, be it the name of the person you wake up next too, or the friend you run into once in a while, this feels full of regret that things haven't worked out as they might have. No matter what else is going on musically I still seem to be focusing on the organ that's almost buried in the mix of this country blues song.
The sparse drumming that opens Come On Easy helps to accentuate this hard bitten tale of having to work 3 jobs just to get by and helps make it sound like a lament for the tough times and hard breaks life has thrown his way with the almost staccato guitar interventions.
Sandcastles has some cool sun dappled guitar among the yearning in the vocals and strings that almost feel like the waves gently breaking onto the beach. Spirit Drive is so laid back it could almost be a JJ Cale tune this is the spirit of an opium den chill out as you drift off into your dreams.
Green Screen see's Zachary acting out his dreams before that Green screen, as the listener adds his or her own backdrop, that I see as like the high plains, as the guitar comes drifting in as that screen shifts like he is on horseback being lashed by a tempestuous storm.
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Bigger Picture shows Zachary riding onto the car park of a low rent motel as like John Cale he sings about the mysterious Mr Wilson, only now he is more like your Grandad than a contemporary who was even more messed up than you were, while thinking it was the other way round and you thought you could live life this way forever as you made sure to only watch the free channels on the motel's tv.
The album closes with Page By Page that takes us on a meandering trip through Zachary's diary and notebooks to put a line or two from here and there, to create this travelogue, of a musician on the road to the next stage, the next load in, while hoping that the people who saw him remember the show afterwards and he doesn't just fade away in their memories.
Find out more at https://orgmusic.com/collections/zachary-cale https://zacharycale.com/ https://zacharycale.bandcamp.com/album/skywriting https://www.facebook.com/zacharycalemusic
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