Rendering cliches moot is no small achievement. Yet if these two records prove anything, it is that it's possible to accomplish this daunting task in a variety of ways. In the case of Paul Taylor, aka New Memphis Colorways, his truth lies in the restoration of the fundamental notion a single individual can indeed sound like a larger ensemble. For their part, Utopia implicitly addresses the verity that two musicians can best illustrate the essential difficulty of playing music well together. Indirectly, however, these artist's records also confront the essential challenge of how to address that paradox of complexity within simplicity, a conundrum of no small proportions inside and outside of the creative realm. If it is indeed true that art mirrors life and vice-versa—yet another hackneyed saying—then these artists are confronting philosophical issues of the highest order and making it sound like it's an unmitigated pleasure to do so.

New Memphis Colorways
It Is What It Isn't
Owl Jackson Jr. Record Company
2021

Making true solo recordings was hardly a novelty even before the quarantines arising from the pandemic. Yet the dexterity and depth of feeling with which Paul Taylor imbues New Memphis Colorways would be distinctive no matter the context. It certainly helps that the sound, mastered by Justin Perkins, spans the audio spectrum and virtually leaps from the speakers/phones. But such dynamism has its source in the one-man playing of all manner of guitars, keyboards and percussion. On cuts like "Hey F****r, Don't Do That," the multi-instrumentalist exhibits the musicianly touch of restraint combined with naturally fluid thought patterns manifest in the shifting instrumental tones and textures. Therein lies a palpably human sensibility at work, captured as much in originals like "Hangover Funk" or disparate choices of cover material in the form of Hammerstein and Kern's "All The Things You Are" and the late