The Special Guests – Tim James With Very Special Guests (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I’m a great believer in collaboration, cross-pollination, the mixing and matching and melding and merging that comes from artists working together to bring the best out of each other. After all, one person’s musical vision remains, just that, a singular idea of who they are and what they sound like. Work with others to explore the space and who knows what those people draw out of each other? What sounds and ideas might otherwise have remained hidden in the dark and delicious corners of the musical soul?

That is the premise behind Tim James’s latest album. As the title suggests, this is more than just a Tim James album, which in itself is cause enough for celebration, but an album that takes his music to new heights through collaborations and creative crossings with Von Bieker, Lyle Molzan, Cynthia Hamar, Christian Mena, and Phoenix Bermudez.

The results are a brilliant array of songs that are more than the sum of their parts; that’s the whole point, after all. A deft collection of folk-infused songs that wander between alt-rockscapes and pastures pop, indie cool and alt-country licks, between the melodic and the more muscular, between the more graceful and the groove orientated.

It is a charming collection of songs and proof, if indeed proof were ever needed, that there is safety in numbers, a safety that ironically allows you to take risks and venture into the unknown.