Review: Naïm Amor - Dansons

Naïm Amor's signature French-and-English mix of jazz, pop and rock shifts toward the tropical on his latest album, a 12-song set that conjures a long afternoon of breezy tranquility. Dansons is a relaxed record, with nimble guitar work, unhurried beats and flourishes of strings, piano, accordion and oboe.

Amor sings in French about half the time, with several songs in English and a couple of songs on which the vocals amount to nonverbal humming or oooohs. It's that mix of languages and styles that gives Dansons its transcendent, day-dream quality.

Amor lined up a skilled and agile band that treads lightly: Matt Mitchell on nylon-string guitar, Arthur Vint on drums and Thøger Lund on upright bass. Guests musicians include Howe Gelb on Wurlitzer, Marco Rosano on accordion, Christian Ravaglioli on oboe, Emilie Marchand on vocals and John Convertino on drums. Dansons was recorded with Jim Waters at Waterworks.

The record is strong throughout, but peaks in the middle, with a standout trio that whisks away the mind: the perky "On Se Tient," the swaying and dreamy "The Other Step" and the Brazilian-inspired "Son Grand Sourire."

A chameleon of a musician who's active in myriad projects, Amor is intriguing when he takes the reins as a songwriter. With a shade of mystery, Dansons captures the sort of contentment that comes when the day's concerns have been bottled up and set aside.

Published March 24, 2011 in the Tucson Weekly.

Naim Amor

Photo by Shaun Hendry

I've never understood the Tucson-Europe connection that's made bands like Calexico, Giant Sand and Greyhound Soul more successful in Italy, Spain and Germany than they are in their hometown. So the fact that a French singer-songwriter would relocate here is extra mysterious.

But Naim Amor, born and raised in Paris, made the leap, moving to Tucson in 1995 at the suggestion of countrywoman Marianne Dissard, who'd already settled here, and soon met Howe Gelb and Joey Burns of Giant Sand. He played for years with Thomas Belhom as the Amor Belhom Duo before setting out to record as a solo artist.

The "what the hell?" attitude that led to the move has brought Amor plenty of opportunity. To him, Tucson has strong parallels to New York City's artistic awakening in the 1960s, when folk and rock musicians, painters and filmmakers alike could all settle in a tight-knit area and, more importantly, get by with cheap rent. The space and time afforded musicians and artists by that sort of low overhead is the key to the sort of creative atmosphere that Amor described to KCRW when he gave an in-studio performance last week.

Singing in French, and sometimes English, Amor has a troubadour style that definitely recalls the type of classic French pop that Wes Anderson finds captivating. He has a typically laid back approach, with a strummed or finger-picked electric guitar and a quiet, languorous singing style that isn't too far from Sam Beam of Iron & Wine. But don't think Amor's 13 years in the desert don't also show up in the songs. There's also this atmospheric spaciousness that isn't quite desert rock, but neither does it sound like Amor is singing from the nightlife of Paris.

Amor's KCRW performance drew mostly from his latest record Sanguine, the Joey Burns-produced disc that caught the taste-making Santa Monica station's attention. But he did throw in a nifty version of "It's Not Easy Being Green." Demitri Manos of Golden Boots and Tom Walbank's Ambassadors sat in on drums for the spare and intimate performance.

Amor has two upcoming Tucson shows, July 24 at Plush (with La Cerca) and July 29 at the Arts Incubator Gallery, next to Grill on Congress.

Listen to Naim Amor's KCRW performance/interview here.

DOWNLOAD:
Amor Belhom Duo - Elevator Baby
Naim Amor - Les Bruits (from Sanguine)
Naim Amor - La Javanaise (live Solar Culture, 2001)
Get the whole 2001 show live at Solar Culture here.Naim Amor Live w/ Calexico and Friends from TucsonScene.com on Vimeo.