Nick Cody has been back in the studio this time with a new ensemble, The Caravan Of Dreams. With fiddle, upright bass, percussion, ukulele and male and female vocals, the band have burst out of the traps with an album of acoustic folk and blues and bagged a few guest stars to boot.
With a drone and some sweet sweet vocal harmony, an intro track kicks things off before leading into some all out Grey Skies blues. One can already sense the male and female vocals are crisply gelling together and the band are well matched with a tight professional empathy.
Unexpectedly we then head for the sandy shores of Hawaii with the vintage styled The Pink Moon, a lovely jazz bass and brushed snare wonderfully setting the sandy mood before a contemporary piano tune takes us down another avenue of exploration. And it is this traversing nature that defines this album I think. The dual vocal and general lilt of the song writing cements the performances together through quite a divergent range of styles yet still with a fluid folk music aura. A stand out performance comes from fiddle player Laurent Zeller who’s fluid fingers are an asset every time and perhaps fine tune the water and sand ratio in that musical cement even further.
Whilst this may not abundantly sound like a typical ukulele album (and why should it have to!) all the songs did spring from a ukulele seed and the instrument is of course ever present. And that’s what we like to applaud at Uke Planet towers, our favourite little guy merging seamlessly into a professional line-up of sound. “Tales Of Dark & Light” is fresh, exploratory and fully loaded with exceptional musicianship and shrewd songwriting.
