wonderfulwoodenreasons.co.ukA nifty piece of bedroom folk picking from Derby from the enigmatically named Lonesome Jonesome. 10 acoustic (guitar) instrumentals (plus occasional other instruments) that are tapping into some sort of primal melody that doesn’t really feel beholden to any particular genre. There is a freshness to The Peeper and the Chin Chin that is hard to resist. The tracks tend to be a bit on the short side (averaging out at around 1 minute 40 seconds), sometimes maybe too short which leaves them feeling a little like sketches rather than the finished article but even then they are delightful to hear. Recommended.
whisperinandhollerin.co.uk
9/10
’The Peeper and Chin-Chin’, a home-recorded 10-track bedroom experiment, is the third release this year from Derby’s most introspective musician, namely the low-key, lo-fi singer-songwriter and guitarist Chris Jones, a.k.a. LONESOME JONESOME.
Locked indoors with only an acoustic guitar, tambourine and FM3 Bhudda machine for company, the results form a misty patchwork of incidental pieces that each clock in at around the 1-2minute mark.
Poignant despite, or perhaps because of their DIY structure, this series of instrumentals are often melancholy, yet always soothing to the soul. The studied intricacy of his guitar work is incredibly absorbing: nylon strings awash with harmonics are alive with sad and fragile beauty. Especially when the sound of his fingers sliding along the fretboard glides above the layered trance.
Classical guitar sounds dominate the record, but country, and world folk influences have also been poured into this intriguing and gentle collection. As genres and guitar strings bend, the sketchy interludes evolve along with knocks on the door and the looping, slowed-down sounds of rainy-day passing traffic that survive. ’One Hundred’ is a celebration of this, and the laughter of children is significantly the clearest of the human voices heard (no finer sound, ladies and gen’lmen, no finer sound!).
There are no instant pop fixes here: these introspective preludes are the results of an altogether different approach. Levels of intrigue rise accordingly as it drifts and slowly, but surely, comes the awareness that listening to this record is a genuinely positive experience. It’s there in the gentle shifts in tempo during ’See You By The Sea’ (this opening track has recently featured on Radio 1, given airplay by Rob Da Bank), as well as in the mind-altering harmonic beauty of ’Gimme Freak Weather’ and final track ’The Mover’. This harmonic loveliness also shines torch-like out of the eerie darkness of ’Oven Shots’.
’Lady With A Dog’s Head’ has an eyes-shut, drop-dead gorgeous melody that’s completely at odds with its grotesque title, and the rattle of the tambourine gently shakes as the jaw-dropping ’Concrete Fields’ unfolds, and fades after a brief and beautiful half-life.
You can pick this up for next to nowt, and you are strongly advised by this writer to do so. The shift that’ll be generated in your attention span will slow the world right down and for 18 minutes your mind will be lost in a therapeutic state of reflective bliss.
cyclicdefrost.com
’Sometimes less is more. And Derby bedroom composer Lonesome Jonesome takes this to heart not only stripping down the instrumentation to an acoustic guitar, a tambourine, and a FM3 Buddha machine, yet also collapsing the tunes down to 1-2 minute suites. Really just an idea per piece. It feels immediate, like he got everything down as quickly as possible and then moved on. Whilst clearly thought has gone into arrangements he hasn’t agonised over the mixing or spent years on the EQ. Driven by a repetitive acoustic guitar riffs, everything else remains subservient, the drone of the Buddha and the percussive use of tambourine which seems to have been added after the guitar. These are simple tunes with plenty of space for extra instrumentation – which Lonesome Jonesome chooses not to add. In fact it’s DIY feel and refusal to clutter up the space is what makes The Peeper and Chin Chin so charming. There’s a knock on the door, you can hear cars passing, children playing, it seems like everything that happened stays on this introspective lofi ten track disc. Lonesome Jonesome is about the truth and the emotion of the moment, perhaps to redo it, to remove the imperfections he is frightened that he will lose this truth and never rediscover it again. It’s music in which the listener not only taps into the melancholic introspective emotion but does their own work, adding their own internal symphony to Lonesome Jonesome’s sparse and fragile pieces.’
chaindlk.com
4/5
Personal "creature" of Chris Jones, a guy coming from Derby/U.K., Lonesome Jonesome on his forth release titled THE PEEPER AND CHIN CHIN is bringing to the attention of folk/alternative music lovers ten tiny tracks/moments which with the simplicity of a classical guitar, a tambourine and the noises of the city are able to freeze emotions by catching your attention. Chris choice to play ten instrumental songs widen the soundtrack effect which give you the idea of a slow day lived into a small city. Even if the tracks sound essential they have different layers where guitars seems to play like little kittens while the tambourine and the town noises give the beat. If the music itself is able to give to the listener enough emotions, the titles are doing the rest by painting surreal pictures like "Lady with a dog’s head", "Gimme freak weather", "Oven shots" or "Losing your intellect". Try it..
psychedelicfolk.com
This is a nice home-made and privately processed mini demo-album of delicately evolving and moody guitar pieces (played by 2 close-harmony acoustic guitars: of slow pickings mostly and strums), with simple hand bell rhythms following the guitar excursions closely, sound as if this is all improvised from a balcony on a great sunny day. The slowly passing cars in a distance which appear like a environmental sound sample on most beginnings (and which make the entire track before the last one, make the music complete as a realistic mood with a real environment; it is a soft sound almost like a breeze, and therefore has the same sonic effect as a seashore in the background..
PS. I found a photograph on his myspace site, taken outwards from inside a house which might be from the home I felt in the music, but then taken on a rainy day.