Here's a review of "Straight to Bootleg, Volume 01" I just came across written up by Christopher Petro at Performer Magazine. Grateful for the write up even if they called me Robert Chung. Haha.

Review:

Big Phony

Straight to Bootleg, Volume 01

Mixed and mastered by Christmas Jahng | Produced by Robert Chung and Koo Chung

It's been three years since the release of Big Phony's Smoking Kills EP, a heartily ambitious, cozy bedroom-pop debut full of loveable ballads, Simon and Garfunkel innocence and softness. The closing song on the EP, a stripped-down number with lo-fi vocals and four-tracked guitar, offers the best tie to the new full length, Straight to Bootleg, Volume 01.

The new release begins with an affectionate, echoey, lo-fi harmony and Robert Choy's strikingly Elliott Smith-like tone (including the falsetto moments). The opening lyrics contrast brooding sweetness with threatening bitterness – which also punctuates the influencing Smith – as Choy sings, "Watch out / There's a mean motherfucker coming after you."

Languid, journey-like song structures and seamless, unhurried tempos add a refinement that lifts this release with the affecting depth and introspection one hopes to find on such a DIY session. Straight to Bootleg is quintessential singer/songwriter frontier: words and guitar, spelled out together infinitely like a sweet marriage.

Choy's guitarwork is top-notch, like the warm hands of Nick Drake, and he maintains complexity in the album by invoking strong musicianship and harmony (most often with himself). To ignore the strong religious undertones as the fleshy pulse beneath the album would bypass a defining, interlacing thread. Choy comes forward with his doctrine early on the second track, "Words that Define," singing, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ / and I believe His name."

Saying Straight to Bootleg is a Christian album sounds pejorative to some; it should be noted here that the religious footing is not preachy. The undertones are certainly there, but they're stark and underscored in endless beauty, which does no more faith proclamation than electric guitars take away from the blues. Choy's songs explore love, loss and inner strength. On those laurels, the album's stripped-down ingenuity is nothing but mesmerizing and awe-inspiring. (Self-released)

www.bigphonymusic.com

-Christopher Petro

http://www.performermag.com/wcp.recordedreviews.0809.php