Eric Vloeimans and Will Holshouser
Two For The Road
(V-flow/Challenge Records)
Dutch trumpet sensation Eric Vloeimans and American master accordionist Will Holshouser release theirr live album Two for the Road on September 1, 2022 via V-flow/Challenge Records. There will be 12-city tour of the US and Canada to accompany the release.
The combination of Trumpet and accordion is hmmmm... certainly not one I've encountered often if even ever before. What the instrumentation loans itself to are sounds sometimes mournful, sad, and dark. This is NOT the music of the rip roaring Sunday Bar-B-Q, no way. But it could be the drum and bass for slow moving people. The gentle sweeps of the accordion, a mix between the sadness of the hero's death in Tango, matched with the lover's departure that drives French Chanson song, is beguiling in it's magic. And there is a little whimsy too.
Vloeimans and Holshouser create unique music that whispers of late night alleys in small French towns, long shadows, solo soulful faces, swirls of Galouise from the ash trays. This is evocative of times gone that most of us have never seen, but after this, will be believe we remember. A little stereotypical view as maybe but has there ever been a movie located in France that hasn't featured the accordion. Allow me laziness!
Two for the Road is imbued with the sadness of days passed, repeating the minutiae of life in all it's incidental details, echoing down the decades. Conjuring, and taking us directly to places we'll never visit, or into the company of people we'll never see. This is valedictory music that despite the tragic pained sadness, is somehow turning the corner and leading us through to brighter days.
Like a cheerier Legend of the Holy Drinker soundtrack! In an ApplePay age, here is a pocket full of change to be fumbled through for the coins required for a small bill. This is all of those movie sad despondent moments of peering through rain drops on the window, just before the sun bursts through. This is music for when you leave, turn the corner and step out of the gloom into the light of a new day, an illuminated life. Two For The Road is a LP of sadness that delights with it's recuperative powers.
