Geoff Farina

The Wishes Of The Dead

The best artists, be they musicians, painters or filmmakers, never stop striving to learn more about their chosen craft. In that respect, Geoff Farina is one of the greats. The guitar virtuoso spent much of the ’90s inventing math rock with his long-running trio Karate and giving today's folk-pop artists a foundation to build upon with his work as one half of the Secret Stars.

Since both of those bands dissolved, Farina has busied himself by honing his abilities as a guitar player, delving deeply into the world of pre-World War II musical history and letting the jazz, blues and folk of that era inform his more straightforward tunes. That spirit is alive and well in his semi-new band, Glorytellers, as well as his first full-fledged solo venture in six years.

According to Farina's website, the songs on The Wishes Of The Dead were “written along the Kenneback River in Maine,” which makes perfect sense considering the rambling, easygoing tone of the album. You can almost envision Farina sitting on a wooden chair picking out these songs on an acoustic as the waters flow by.

The river also apparently stirred up an air of poignancy and pain; both feelings permeate Farina's lyrics. He draws out sense memories of colors and the heady air of summer in “Prelapsarian” with the same clean lines as he does the snapshots of a failing relationship on “Twilit.” Yet there's something about the lightness of Farina's singing and playing that never lets you feel weighed down by his despairing tales. Supposing these are all coming from an autobiographical place, you get the sense instead that he's fully come to terms with what he's singing about; by vocalizing the pain, he can finally be free of the ache. If Farina has learned anything in his 20-plus years as a musician, it's how to turn the worst parts of life into the greatest art.

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“Twilit”