FAME Review: Chris Riffle - Another Dream
A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange
by Mark S. Tucker
(progdawg@hotmail.com).
Chris Riffle has taken to issuing EP-CDs rather than waiting until gathering enough funds to document his ongoing latest. This sort of thing, to my mind, is what has marked the turning point of the EP format, which, in its earlier history, was a loss-leader promo gimmick, then a legitimate teaser art form, now something allowing periodic updates on creatives' endeavors while pointing to future gatherums. Prior to this release, Riffle issued Introducing Chris Riffle (here), a full-on work, and I am Not from Here (here), an EP, both sonically in line with Another Dream. In fact, he's even more wistful, wispy, and deliciously down-tone here than before, cementing the wont into almost a reflective crooner set of sonic manners.
Jimi Zhivago returns to partner the singer-guitarist, once again demonstrating his own manifold gifts, fitting like hand in glove into Riffle's work, the pair akin to a moody Simon and Garfunkel sans the secondary vocals (Riffle provides his own backing vox…when, that is, Miranda isn't, in her own sweet way). There are six cuts here, including a tonally quite different take on Lennon & McCartney's And I Love Her, appearing as And I Love Him, but my favorite is the title track, positioned as the closer and a marvelously soporific gem of lullabye melodics, a fuller return to the Donovan/Nick Drake vibe more clearly evident in Chris' first release.
Riffle's one of those musicians I have to suspect is going to one day produce a magnum opus, kinda like Cat Stevens did with Tea for the Tillerman though in much different vein. He's already a unique and fully fleshed musician demonstrative of everything such an artist should be, but there's a sense of yet more, of something still in its formative stages beneath the already gratifyingly growing set of opuses. I haven't a clue what that will be, and it won't matter if it ever arrives because what's already been produced is more than satisfying, but he's among those you know possesses dimensions transcending what's already been revealed.