Geoff Farina has made a career out of talking softly and carrying a big stick, that stick being his G&L Legacy guitar. For 14 years the Berkley College of Music graduate toured the world fronting the post-punk cum smooth jazz outfit Karate, eschewing the bombast and grit of his contemporaries for more precise playing and lyrical simplicity. Having nothing left to prove in the guitar department, Farina has let his instrument take a backseat to prose on his new project, Glorytellers.
Always a strong if cryptic lyricist, Farina’s tendency toward sparse vocals was a hallmark of the Karate sound. These days he’s exploring more complex stories with his songs. The writing process for Glorytellers‘ eponymous release is telling: Farina put aside his electric six string and all its accompanying accoutrements in favor of a cheap flamenco guitar. Written in a small cabin in a secluded Italian village, the songs drip with the patience and lackadaisical motility of a seasoned songwriter who has truly found his comfort zone. On this initial offering, Farina explores the concepts of hope and despair through the lives of a series of characters facing adversity in different forms. “Camoflage” tells the story of a teenage mother struggling to make the best of her situation despite the disappointment of her family: “So you only see the ripening wishes / in images of you, with edges slightly turned / The possibilities, like buds on dead branches.” On the decidedly less uplifting “Quarantine,” Farina tells the tale of a town where ravenous patriotism comes back to haunt the townspeople when their children are sent off to war: “The blood, the needles, the piss, you proudly voted for this / now you hang it out your window, pin it on your lapel / the same sanctions at home render your city a tomb / your best intentions gonna turn your little heaven to hell.” Farina has truly come into his own as a storyteller with this debut.
-Oakland L. Childers
Glorytellers: www.geofffarina.com
Southern Records: www.southern.com