Adam Lipman’s new record, California Hard, is out today. There is absolutely no one that sounds like Adam Lipman and his songs are some of the best that I have ever heard. Lipman has always been matter of fact, getting to the heart of the matter without histrionics, and on his latest work, a meditation on failed love, he imbues the record with an otherworldly orchestra. He sings without letting the delivery get fouled up by a narrator that manipulates the listener with a petty hollar as if to offer proof of emotional investment. Instead, the records gorgeous production and arrangements, courtesy of David Herman Düne, and lyrics that do not fail on the written page, offer how much care and consideration was put into this release, one like no other in his oeuvre. This is a record to be listened to closely, like that one conversation with a lover, with pauses and slow fades that signals an end is on the horizon.
