New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Nat Lyon official website) Nat Lyon has issues. In the backwoods hill country of northeastern Connecticut memories go back far. People are plain spoken and opinionated, avoid attention when possible, disdain hypocrisy, and never forget past wrongs. On his newest release, LCRV (Lower Connecticut River Valley), Lyon draws on his swamp-Yankee traditions and shines a light on social, economic, and environmental issues that are both personal and universal. He might be singing about his tiny corner of Connecticut, but he is also singing about your town, your relationships, and your nasty little habits too. The characters in these 12 songs take no prisoners, they take pharmaceuticals to keep their heads and hearts intact - and there are no innocent victims.
In an attempt to avoid a wastrel life in those Connecticut hills, Lyon earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology and built a professional life in higher education that he recently abandoned to discover a life unscripted, or rather a life self-scripted through music. He spends his days renovating an 18th century farmhouse while writing and recording songs that can be described as folk only in the most abstract academic sense. They may actually more closely resemble anthropological field notes set to music. Lyon draws on themes from his family history blended with those of the present day. On the album title track the narrator's alcoholic grandfather opens his antique store up for business one morning, while his brother's house/meth lab burns to the ground, which the local volunteer fire department wisely chooses to ignore. And from there it all spirals, or rather stumbles, downwards. In almost every song on LCRV Lyon questions the motives behind his characters in the choices they make- and does not simply report on their actions, or even remotely attempt to romanticize them.
These are not traditional folk songs, and they are not pretty. LCRV is an album without excessive outside influences. Nat Lyon simply writes songs about his own invented life and unabashedly comments on the world as he sees it, which might occasionally make the audience cringe. Lyon writes without a filter, embracing the loosest of language, song structure, and lyric form, but the result is rewarding to the active listener. There are acoustic guitars- sure, but there are also processed and sampled sounds, programmed and live drums, reverse electric guitars, and lots of feedback. This unique approach to composing and recording is reflected in the diverse range of acts Lyon has opened for in 2012, which include Emperor X, Stephen Steinbrink,
Jonah Tolchin, and Brown Bird. Nat Lyon is not like any one of these artists, but writes somewhere near the edges of each of them. Putting forth the effort to digest the themes and musical motifs is worth the time, and if you do not mind traversing the grey regions between punk/noise and Americana you will not be disappointed.
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Music:https://www.1uppr.com/mp3/lcrv.mp3
