Arkansas-based songwriter Jonivan Jones brings together folk traditions, Delta blues, and psychedelic touches on Ozark Moon, a two-track EP. Recorded across Arkansas and Texas Hill Country, the release was captured on a salvaged reel-to-reel tape machine, lending the songs an analog foundation that suits Jones’ interest in place, memory, and the enduring language of American roots music.
The EP’s title track resonates with a swampy outpouring of twangy guitars and bluesy lead steadiness, opening with a smitten “your eyes they shine like the gold” proclamation. Acoustic strums and rollicking twangs continue to delight as Jones’ delivery wanders with a debonair charm, attaining a more emotive inflection in the “well I’m not gone” stirrings. “Down in the Arkansas, well, I thought it was gone,” he resonates there amidst plucky guitar tones. “But I’m not gone.” A sense of soul-searching, wandering “to the face of the Earth,” pairs with a rootsy rock exterior for a fantastic sound on “Ozark Moon.”
Rounding out the EP, “Desert Surf Blues” moves from subdued affirmations of Jones admitting “got a way out” amidst sturdy strums, expanding into a free-flowing electric prowess past the first minute before the lead presence reprises the initial verses. “I got a head start,” Jones lets out thereafter, venturing into a final 30 seconds with layered, bluesy guitar sophistication intertwining with the brisk strumming undercurrents. Both songs on Ozark Moon are excellent showcases in songwriting by Jonivan Jones, who previously impressed us with the At Joe’s Sound Room EP and single “Take My Heart (To Its Grave).”
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“Ozark Moon” and other tracks featured this month can be streamed on the updating Obscure Sound’s ‘Emerging Singles’ Spotify playlist.
We discovered this release via MusoSoup.
