“THE WOODDITTON WIVES CLUB” Alex Highton (Ditton Green) ****+
If you twitter, you might know Alex Highton. Actor Ashton Kutcher is a fan and uses Highton’s music on his own website. Thanks to a mention on Kutcher’s twitter account, visits to Highton’s MySpace page went from 15,000 in two years, to 63,000 in just a couple of days.
I knew none of this before hearing the disc, sent to me by Jenn Ashton at Vancouver’s Rave On Studios, mixer of “The Woodditton Wives Club”. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be ‘comfortable’. Each song feels like a little story that you can almost see unfolding as you listen. It wasn’t surprising, then, to learn that Alex Highton describes himself as “a wannabe Harry Nilsson”. His voice is light, airy and elastic, and the instrumentation (he plays everything himself) is buoyant and spacious. When you put this on it feels like he’s right there in the room. He never overstays his welcome either- of these 13 songs, only two are just over the 3:00 mark, and that’s only by a few seconds. No showboating here, no “look how fast I can play and aren’t these chords I’m using just the cat’s ass” with this guy, just a pile of groovy songs with a latter day Beatle-esque warmth and Ron Sexsmith intrigue. Go online to myspace.com/alexhighton to find out what the fuss is all about.
KEY CUTS: “Look After Yourself”, “We’ll All Have Fun”, “Village Life”, “Smoking”