Peter Broderick
Colours of the Night
Release Date: May 4, 2015
Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
Record label: Bella Union
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Buy Colours of the Night from Amazon
Album Review: Colours of the Night by Peter Broderick
Very Good, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 3.5
Life has not been easy for Peter Broderick these past three years. The almost freakishly talented and prolific singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist has built his reputation through a number of high quality albums for Bella Union and Erased Tapes, enjoying his craft with the former as a purveyor of intimate songs and with the latter exploring more experimental, electronic sidelines with a modern classical flavour. In the course of this abundant body of work, however, Broderick fell ill with a stress-related illness, a result of attempts to recreate the 2012 album http://www.itstartshear.com in the live environment.
Based on rating 7/10
There is a degree of familiarity to Peter Broderick’s Colours of the Night. Until recently, the multi-faceted multi-instrumentalist American was perhaps more renowned as a collaborator (Efterklang et al) than a solo artist, but with his latest album his numerous qualities are on show once more. Although the result is recognisable one, this time the approach was slightly different.
Based on rating 6.5/10
Head here to submit your own review of this album. Peter Broderick can hardly be accused of slouching at any stage of his musical career. He has produced 15 solo projects in the last 8 years, collaborating along the way on a mammoth 3-year project with Nils Frahm, touring with Efterklang and still finding time to soundtrack a number of films and release limited-edition CD-Rs of his piano scores.
Opinion: Fantastic
The product of an unlikely collaboration between an Oregon singer-songwriter and a small group of Swiss musicians, recorded in a studio more usually associated with Alpine hip-hop, Colours of the Night is a beguiling and yet joyously engaging set that brings the best out in Peter Broderick’s voice and takes him far beyond his established musical milieu. It’s a brave departure for him, a shift away from the studied arrangements of many previous albums towards a greater sense of spontaneity and a (thoroughly justified) trust in his accompanists. The title track, with its stylistic echoes of the world of Paul Simon’s Graceland, is exuberant and is followed by a winning rendition of Stina Nordenstam’s "Get On With Your Life".
'Colours of the Night'
is available now