Time travel, that’s what I feel when first hitting play on “Love & The Sweet Divine,” the debut full length album by Solaram. The first track “When She Falls” is a mix of Spacemen 3 memories and the vocal sweetness of The Beatles created through basic lyrics about love (shocking for songwriters I know) a little bit of organ, tambourines and hands. It’s cute. The second track “Precious Time” is about the same as the first. However the third track “My Back Life” opens with some serious soul that you can feel before the bluesy guitar even hits your ears. It has that familiar haven’t I heard this song before feel to it, but I don’t mind. It’s catchy, I love it, and I want to do the mash potato to it. My favorite dance move that I’m still trying to teach to my friend Jose. Don’t worry buddy you will master it! Maybe to this song … who knows?

Other honorable mentions go to the song “Dancing” as well as the songs “Love’s” and “Time, Wait For Me.” “Dancing” has an outro that sounds like you just walked into a Black Angels show. Which if you don’t know me you should know I think of that as a major compliment. “Love’s” is another love song but it’s so beautifully basic but then it’s not, all at the same time. Hard to explain I know but you should just give it a listen and you can decide if I’m full of shit with that line. “Time, Wait For Me” well … shit it’s just a really great song title, and the lyrics force the wheels in your head to turn and process. Makes me feel like I’m a part of my own history as if the song paints this massive time line on a wall and then there’s a little star marked on it that says you are here. Again, with the time travel … I guess that’s just the theme of this little essay I’m writing now which you will read in your present but my future all written in our past. Okay, too much back to this album.

“Solaram” is the solo music project of Joe Tagg guitarist of The Three 4 Tens out of Philadelphia. It seems a group of creative individuals including members of Himalaya and The Asteroid #4 formed the ‘recording group’ and they spend time just designing musical formulas to their hearts desire. Any kind of lab sounds like an enormous amount of fun to me whether it’s a chemistry lab or music lab. It’s great to be mixing things just to see what happens with or with out explosions.  That’s exactly what this album feels like.  As if it was created with no pressure, no stress to be something, it just wants to be.  And I want to be just listening to it while I chill out.

Album essay by Roxanne Hilburn

Artist: Solaram
Album: “Love & The Sweet Divine”
Label: Rainbow Quartz
Release Date:  September 28, 2010