Nancy Bryan – Neon Angel (SACD)

The first non-blues artist on Analogue Productions, Los Angeles singer/songwriter Nancy Bryan offers up Neon Angel, her second APO release, awash in social commentary and intense soul.

Bryan’s honesty in her approach to songwriting has created a stylization that defies category. Neon Angel is a unique and personal body of work. In it, her lyrics are visual and socially relevant, yet intimate, poetic and immediate. Her music ranges from the ethereal to a plaintive earthiness, and at times both expressions are grasped in the same moment. This recording is as classic and as powerful as Joni Mitchell’s legendary Blue.

The setting for Nancy’s songs is specific, yet timeless. “Blame It On The Moon” is a Southern swamp life spiritual sung against an undulating bass line. “Pulse and Time” is as light as whipped cream in the confluence of dobro, ukulele and D-tuned acoustic guitar. And you can almost see the cold blue November sky behind a silhouette of skyscrapers in the melancholy “Chicago Skyline” and feel the singer’s loneliness as her soaring vocals cry out for an irredeemable past.

Neon Angel was recorded live, direct-to-two-track at Blue Heaven Studios, the converted 77-year-old church in Salina, Kansas. This 13-song, all-acoustic album emphasizes the church’s natural acoustics, bringing to life the massive, vaulted ceiling and Nancy on the altar. Every track on this record is naked and essential and is an equally integral part of a brilliant mosaic.

Nancy Bryan Neon Angel Track Listing:

1.  Nobody’s Buying
2.  Blame it On The Moon
3.  Pulse and Time
4.  Chicago Skyline
5.  Neon Angel
6.  Salvation
7.  Bending Road
8.  Skating At The Edge
9.  Deep As The Sea
10. I Hear Voices
11. I’ll Be Waiting
12. My Love is A Message
13. Come Thou Fount