Reviews

Artist: Thump Country
DVD: Inside
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 6
Rating: ***
Contact: stevetots@talk21.com

INSIDE is the companion release to Outside, a DVD release earlier in the year.
Like it's predecessor, it's a six track compilation of elequently stripped bare songs consisting of voice and lap guitar.
The songs are recorded at the location that inspired them and a video is shot of both
Despite being called Inside, only one of the songs was truely recorded inside. The track, Flowergirl, was recorded at a village hall, just before a jumble sale. The tables are set up, but no one is allowed in yet, you can imagine the people milling about outside waiting for the door to open.
Once again the videos are highly evocative, but I don't feel that as a set, they quite manage to capture the sense of time and place that the previous offering did.
That said two of Steve and Jim's offerings on this disc are the best linked of all they've done, Remember and Sorry Sir.
The former is about a beachful of childhood memories, the later set in Bodmin prison
Inside is a beautiful and poetic work across the mediums. It has true sparkle in places and offers relief to the soul.
The disadvantage is that it comes as a package. It's difficult to get away from the concept as a whole. It's almost impossible to just listen to the track without the image. Thump Country have come up with a great artistic experience and once again I find myself thinking six tracks not enough, what's next