Jim Patton & Sherry Brokus - Harbortowne (self-released)

I’m never quite sure what the term Americana, when referring to music, really means, both because, being a Brit, I haven’t grown up around it and because genres are always too vague a term. I suspect if you asked three people what it meant, you’d get five different answers! But if it means music evokes a place, a sound, a style, something that feels truly part of the cultural fabric of The United States, then “Harbortowne” feels like Americana , all the way.

And perhaps there is a good reason for that. Jim Patton and Sherry Brokus bonded over artists such as The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane, and The Everly Brothers, particularly Emmy Lou Harris’s collaborations with Bob Dylan. Also citing the works of writers such as Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Kerouac, and Salinger, their creations demonstrably have American cultural DNA running through their core.

If the two are generally found making music that ebbs and flows between folk and rock, “Harbortowne” leans toward the former. It is upbeat and addictive, humourous and celebratory of life’s simple pleasures, full of their trademark gorgeously intertwined harmonies, country rock shuffle beats, and bluesy twangs.

It might seem like a simple song, but the more you listen to it, the more you appreciate the layers of tone and texture, the deftly spliced sonics and the space that lets them breathe.

So, with a new album on the way, for which this is a sumptuous sonic sampler, there is just enough time to familiarize yourself with the duo’s back catalog before a whole new set of songs is up for grabs.