Chords of Truth

Imagine one man and his guitar and a roll of folk songs unravelling in his head. Now imagine that very same man jamming along to an accompaniment of acid and dubstep bangers…it’s not actually as laughable as it first sounds. ‘Reflections of Reality’ manages to marry the folk intonations of the spiritualistic songwriter Jason Garriotte with overriding synthesisers to subsidise the previous minimalism of his original tracks.

Now, it’s Folktronica; essentially, it’s a bit of the traditional world music with a 10 megaton missile strapped to its backside. Backed by an extensive group of renowned producers, Chords of Truth has created a collection of funky fist-pumpers and head-thumpers sparkling with rich moog basses, cool arpeggiators and some moody leads.

However, much of Garriotte’s wordy ponderings have been drastically reduced and specific sentiments recycled throughout the particular compositions – almost annoyingly so sometimes. This is kind of a staple of underground dance music and is probably the reason why this album wouldn’t do so well on the mainstream. Ultimately, each track revels in the showmanship of sound through a convolution of virtual elements, then tops it off with important lyrical segments from Garriotte’s work. The only problem is that the music is so overpowering that you aren’t listening to 'what that man just said'.

But all this does beg the question: was the original LP by Chords of Truth so dull that it needed a synthetic make-over to revitalise it? Possibly. I’ve heard the originals and I am a campfire short of really liking what I was hearing. One thing’s for sure though – the songs on this double delivery are vastly more powerful, complexly composed and uplifting than anything Garriotte could have achieved acoustically on his own.