Jode Gannon’s album 3 Hours is a gorgeous collection of heart-crushingly honest acoustic songs, recorded in a very raw and live sounding manner, so everything feels like it’s being performed right there in the room with you.
I Wanna Kiss You is the opening song, a stripped back and lightly energetic piece of music and songwriting. After this the track What Am I To You falls into your life, and this one has a different sense of emotion to it entirely, despite the apparent consistence in theme. The songwriter’s ability to use these varying feelings relating to love to write songs that sound completely different, and express a different sort of sentiment, is wonderfully effective. This is something you’ll notice the further into the album you get. What Am I To You is a stunning track, similar in emotional depth to some of the classic moments shared with us by Damian Rice. Acoustic guitar music is common these days, but it’s not always as drenched in real humanity as it could be, and that’s something you get throughout this collection.
Love Song dives even further into the reality of emotional depth. In fact, it seems as if the artist in this case exposes his inner feelings and thoughts more and more with each and every song that is shared. The realness intensifies as the time passes, and you really sense the honesty and the vulnerability in the words, and in the vocal performance, and in the simplistic yet powerful use of instrumentation. The softness of the rhyme scheme in this song means that you really focus in on the words, and fortunately, they have been so superbly chosen that there is nothing remotely disappointing.
It’s inescapably captivating to hear skilful songwriters be themselves entirely. You get both the entertainment element and the relatable openness, the believability. The energy and the skill of the music and the performance grabs attention as it should, but with shorter and shorter attention spans these days there’s much more that is needed to hold an audience captive. The human touch is a massive part of it. Real emotion is something that will always strike a chord, and you can hear it in this music, in this songwriting, in Jode Gannon’s up close and personal vocal performance style, and in the gentle sound of his guitar playing.
3 Hours is in fact just 30 minutes of music, but it’s more than worth taking the time out to relax with. Fans of soulful folk songwriting or indeed just acoustic guitar music in general will feel right at home with these songs. Effects-wise there is but a streak of reverb throughout the project, adding a dreamlike and mysterious element to the mix, but not so much so that it takes anything away from the truth of it all.
An absolute must-see musician for the coming months. Jode Gannon is performing at Belushi’s in Camden, London, this coming Tuesday (25th October). Find out more about the gig via our event listing. Listen to the album 3 Hours over on Youtube. Follow Jode Gannon on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Soundcloud for more music and live shows. Find out a little more about him via Reverbnation.
