Jamie Woon – Mirrorwriting
Polydor: 2011
Aside from the profoundly neurotic vampire line, “Daylight fills my heart with sadness,” the first few tracks on Mirrorwriting are smoldering and sophisticated. The strings, the snaps, the gossamer chamber choir, and Jamie Woon’s velvety R&B vocals hint at the unfolding of either a seductively problematic club-leaning love story or a seductively problematic club-leaning interior monologue. Either way, let’s go.
The thing is, Woon takes himself far too seriously. As a result, all the steamrolling on the first half of the album gives way to impotent self-indulgence. He flirts briefly with orchestral neo-soul on tracks like “Lady Luck”, whose Daniel Bedingfieldesque lay-lay-lay loops serve as fantastic dance floor burners. “Shoulda”, with its Tangerine Dream-induced composition floating over the wistful iteration, “Walked when I shoulda run/ And don’t I know it,” sets the stage for catharsis, perhaps even a funky hat confession a la Jamiroquai.
Instead, we’re guided into the thick of Woon’s own existential dance floor via “Middle”, a track I would not hesitate to dance and/or cry to depending on the remix and my mood, and one that emits flashes of melodic sincerity in spite of its rather hollow pop pneuma.
Woon’s pristine vocals maintain on the latter half of the album, but the songs begin to border on neo-Enrique Iglesias rather than neo-soul with lines like, “We’re looking for answers/come on and make my heart a dancer” delivered over truncated acoustics. And then there is “Tmrw”, a needlessly weighty track urging me never to copulate again over a well-mixed synth. The Mayans ruined everything.
The bottom line is, the effort is too enamored lyrically with non-specific melodrama to ever transcend its own weight. Closing tracks “Gravity” and “Waterfront” are delivered truly and gracefully–Woon’s falsetto teasing its own potential in its melancholy restraint– but they don’t quite justify the contrived angst that weighs down the album’s core. Cheer up, Jamie Woon. Or drag those ghosts all the way out of the shadows. That voice is made for more.
3 out of 5
