In today’s world, it’s often difficult to know who does what. Producers, engineers, backing musicians and songwriters are pushed off the main screen, with the credit list only accessible—if at all—via a click here, a click there and maybe another click or two after that. It’s a weird thing for those of us who came of age scouring record sleeves and inserts for such information to not be instantly accessible. As a result, Dex Green is likely a name that’s new to you—it is for me, at any rate. Through the years, however, the Nashville-based producer, engineer, musician and songwriter has worked with many famous and not-so-famous artists, including (but not limited to) Nicole Atkins, Collective Soul, Elizabeth Cook, Shemekia Copeland, Elvis Costello, Margo Price, Allison Russell and Aaron Lee Tasjan.
Imaginary War is his debut. To call it a dose of synth-driven psychedelic soul is something of a disservice, yet it may have to do. I pressed play on it while out and about late Sunday morn. Dark clouds hung around the sky, with slices of Carolina blue cutting through for minutes at a time. Rain splattered on the windshield one minute, dissipated the next, and for once I didn’t mind. Imaginary War conjures the retro stylings of Durand Jones & the Indications alongside the mid-1970s beats of the Bee Gees, with bass and drums driving the music while synths, piano and organ tint the many moods found therein. An Alan Parsons tint hovers throughout, too. It’s ethereal and laidback, yet taut and tense, akin to a codeine-tempered fever dream.
To be succinct, it’s one of those albums that possesses nominal beginnings and ends yet is a set piece, a symphonic suite, with each tune flowing into the next. Green wrote and arranged the songs, sings lead, and plays every instrument; his only collaborator is Laura Mayo, who provides backing vocals on three tracks. As on “Imaginary War,” which leads off, the lyrics are mostly impressionistic: “Chasing shadows/in darkness/Been waiting on something/Just like dreaming/Dissolving/Like stones in/the water.” “It’s Only the End of the World” digs into the diversions we embrace during times of crisis, “Days Fly By” flips that script to explore how time flies even when we’re not having fun, and “Borderline” explores how worlds overlap.
“Intermission” is an atmospheric wonder, floating midway through the album as if a balloon skirting the clouds. “Unbelievable,” for its part, reins in the ethereal mood one moment and expands upon it the next, with a Beatlesque piano part echoing no less than the Summer of Love. “Here She Comes” continues the mood, while “The Story Is Already Over” falls from the edge of nowhere into the velvety cushion of the Bee Gees—if Alan Parsons had helmed the soundboard, that is. The same is true of “Walking in the Garden.” The album brings the impressionistic trip full circle with “Imaginary War pt2.”
At times, the retro sound reminds me of Van Morrison’s Inarticulate Speech of the Heart, albeit with synths instead of a sax, and the ambient tracks found on Side 2 of McCartney II, though—as I noted above—its more of a mix of Durand Jones, the Bee Gees and Alan Parsons. Chords and notes float forth from the speakers as if leaves carried on a breeze, rising, falling, swirling and twirling, and never touching ground. It’s an impressive work.
The tracks:
The Old Grey Cat 