During these stressful times, I find myself enjoying soothing music more than I ever did. Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster and Tom Eaton have been making those kind of sounds for years and now they’ve joined forces to proffer that serenity as a formidable group with their new collaboration Brothers.
Will Ackerman is such an imposing figure in the New Age universe, I wonder if I even need to mention that this gifted guitarist is the guy who started Windham Hill Records. Jeff Oster came on the scene later, and was given his big break as a recording artist by Ackerman over fifteen years ago, but the trumpet and flugelhorn maestro has since done nothing but improved on the New Age genre by making it groove and his horn’s pure, controlled tone adds poignancy to any subdued mood. On Brothers, his flugelhorn often functions as the lead voice.
Tom Eaton has made his reputation as a producer, arranger and engineer — expertise that comes in very handy in the making of this socially-distanced set of recordings — but Eaton is also a composer and capable of playing many instruments. On Brothers, he contributes keyboards, bass guitar, percussion and even adds extra acoustic guitars.
It’s relatively easy to make reposeful music these days using electronic wizardry but it’s still not the same as handmade music. Ackerman, Oster and Eaton drive that point home track after track with the human touch of acoustic guitars, piano and a courtly trumpet or flugelhorn.
Eaton is the glue that brings everything together into a well-pureed whole. Whether he’s on piano, electric piano or gentle synth washes, he knows how to fill in whatever is left behind by Ackerman and Oster. For example, the acoustic piano on “The Golden Hour” is of the same mind as Ackerman’s acoustic guitar, and sometimes it’s hard to separate the two apart. The bass notes are only played when necessary to maintain the feathery feel of the song.
Another striking aspect of Brothers is that the feel they painstakingly constructed are served by real, soulful melodies; you could have easily attached wistful lyrics to “Head For The Sky” and made a nice, singer-songwriter ballad from it.
Their formula for feel works everywhere but none better than on the aptly named “The Confluence”, where each performer sends down a stream of lush sound and all the streams come together beautifully into a river of rich resonance.
Eaton perfectly characterizes Brothers in a very relatable way, saying, “That is where it comes from, the three of us sitting around the table as friends, telling stories and laughing … creating a connection to nature, an emulation of that consistent sense of place but sense of consistent change as well. Creating that landscape; varying slightly like a natural landscape would.”
Brothers is now available, from here, here and here.
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