h o m e
The Noise (Magazine, USA)
January 2006
Web site
JOE TURNER & THE SEVEN LEVELS
T.T the Bears, Cambridge, MA 12/18/05
Joe Turner & The Seven Levels are seven musicians: two keyboard
players, bassist, drummer, guitarist, guitarist/ cellist, and a
multi-instrumentalist who plays hand percussion, flute, and accordion.
Five of them sing. It's a complicated sound. Their songs are
primarily spacey, down-tempo psych-pop. The first one is sort of dark
and swirling, but they get cheerier as the set progresses. They're
like Oasis songs arranged by Pink Floyd. I'm also occasionally
reminded of The Moody Blues. None of them is an outstanding singer
individually, but with five of them singing at various times there's a
lot of depth and harmony, so the vocal element is pretty strong
overall. There's a lot of individually good instrumental work'I
particularly notice the bass and some of the keyboard stuff'but with
all these instruments onstage at TT's, it gets a bit washy much of the
time which works pretty well with this style of music. (Steve
Gisselbrecht)