{"id":855,"date":"2009-03-11T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2009-03-11T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hightwo.com\/ht\/?p=855"},"modified":"2009-03-11T10:00:40","modified_gmt":"2009-03-11T15:00:40","slug":"reviews-adam-arcuragi-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author: Mike Conklin
\nSource: L Magazine<\/em>
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It\u2019s always weird when a songwriter appears from out of nowhere to enter your consciousness and win you over immediately. Even weirder is when that same songwriter disappears just as quickly, leaving only a few completed tracks and a handful of demos in his wake. Such was my experience with Adam Arcuragi, a young artist from Philadelphia whose approach to standard singer-songwriter fare is impossibly refreshing.<\/p>\n

Arcuragi made a small splash in his native Philadelphia when he released a very promising split-EP with the band Audible. Then he proceeded to take almost four years to work on his self-titled debut full-length with an endless list of local musicians in assorted recording environments. And although the less-than-ideal recording conditions make the album seem scattered at times, it was entirely worth the wait.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fairly quiet record that will no doubt draw comparisons to Nick Drake and other such troubadours. There\u2019s something uncomfortably intimate about the way Arcuragi, an award-winning playwright, delivers his lyrics. He comes across as innocent and yet hyper-aware of his surroundings, as someone who has a healthy if sometimes troubling fascination with love, death and the freeing power of music. Admirably, he addresses these topics without ever seeming overwrought. His composure and taste in accompaniment is top-notch, looking only to light drumming, sparse electric guitar and a steady organ for support. Arcuragi illustrates an important point about dynamics in music too: by keeping things fairly laid back most of the time, it becomes that much more affecting when he does loosen the reins on his deceivingly strong voice. \u2018The Screen (Philadelphia)\u2019 is a perfect example. At over six minutes in length, it\u2019s a brilliant exercise in restraint, bursting at the seams with a nervous desperation that\u2019s only indulged briefly. It would be one thing if I could tell you that this is the kind of shit he was figuring out between releases, but the version included here is the exact one I heard a few years ago. Arcuragi innately understands these things, and we should be glad he\u2019s finally decided to share them with all of us.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: Mike Conklin Source: L Magazine Link to this article It\u2019s always weird when a songwriter appears from out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_eb_attr":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[66,47,69,50,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-arcuragi-artists","category-artists","category-ht006","category-releases","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","acf":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":866,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":0},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"I don't know much about [Adam Arcuragi], but I found myself putting in [his] CD in my player over and over again.\" -Bob Boilen, NPR's all things considered Link to this article","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Arcuragi"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Arcuragi","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/adam-arcuragi-artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":871,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-9\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":1},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\"'1981' feels like the song of the century.\" -Patrick Rapa, Philadelphia City Paper, Mar 16, 2006","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Arcuragi"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Arcuragi","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/adam-arcuragi-artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4347,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":2},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Brian McMurray Source: Harmonium Link to this article There\u2019s a reason some artists are dubbed with the title of singer\/songwriter. Let\u2019s face it, there are a lot of musicians that both sing and write their own music, but not all of them are considered singer\/songwriters. It\u2019s no surprise that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Arcuragi"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Arcuragi","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/adam-arcuragi-artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":846,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":3},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: Steve Klinge Source: Magnet Magazine Mar 2006 \"Adam Arcuragi sings with an impassioned edge that owes a little to both Jeff Mangum and Conor Oberst, and his songs tend toward discursive, stream-of-consciousness forms.\"","rel":"","context":"In "Artists"","block_context":{"text":"Artists","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4346,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":4},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Author: John Schacht Source: All Music Guide Link to this article The debut full-length from Philadelphia singer\/songwriter Adam Arcuragi is the sonic cousin to the melancholic folk of Nick Drake and current sepia-tinged fellow travelers like Mark Kozelek, Damien Jurado, acoustic Chris Mills, and Dolorean. Like the latter's debut, Not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Arcuragi"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Arcuragi","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/adam-arcuragi-artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":869,"url":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/reviews-adam-arcuragi-8\/","url_meta":{"origin":855,"position":5},"title":"Reviews – Adam Arcuragi","author":"admin","date":"March 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Philadelphia City Paper: Top 21 Albums of 2006 \"For those who prefer their regret rock dappled with sunlight and hope (think Nick Drake or Hope Sandoval), local hero Arcuragi and his Philly-rock all-star supporting cast manage a neat trick: a bittersweet, lyrical debut album that's intimate without feeling autobiographical; you're\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adam Arcuragi"","block_context":{"text":"Adam Arcuragi","link":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/category\/adam-arcuragi-artists\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hightwo.net\/two\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}