Today we have an emotional and human journey. It comes with several gut punches. It doesn’t flinch and it doesn’t soft soap. Cynful Ukes’s Trauma Stew is an collection of songs that takes you by the hand and leads you through a life lived.
The first time I listened to Trauma Stew it floored me with it’s honesty. This is a life, mistakes and all. Print it on a flag and hoist it up for all to see. Bravery like this is devastating but also so beautiful. Each song has a strong lyrical narrative and an even stronger melodic edge.
The recordings feel live. There’s a very organic and unfussy recording style. Almost as if you’re in a small bar listening as they play through their set as if you’re not there. It has air, it breathes, it allows words to land, for emotion to be felt. Given that it is recorded so well. It’s not easy to get this right.
Cyn Ketner has such an honest song writing style that leaves little on you with every song, his voice cuts through and hits you with the weight needed for lyrics like this but it has such a beauty to it that you take the hit each time. Music like this, raw with experience and love and hope what we need sometimes. We need to connect and songs like this do that. I’d pay good fucking money to see Cyn Ketner and the Cynful Ukes live because I feel like that’s where it would really off.
Thoroughly recommend this album.
“Trauma Stew” was an album full of surprises for me. I expected a solo-artist and got a band. I expected Hip-Hop, EDM, Punk or MetalCore and got punk-inspired Americana. And I certainly did not expect to hear such an expressive, clear and powerful voice! In his own words, front man and principal songwriter Cyn Ketner intended this album to be about “the story of my transition, and my continuing journey towards self acceptance and self love”, and he did so with impressive lyricism that burrows right into the listeners heart and mind. Even though I have made very different experiences in my life, I found a lot I could relate to in every song.
The feel of the album as a whole is grounded and honest, which is further enforced by the simple but effective mix. Vocals and instruments all have their place, without any frills or acrobatics, an approach that makes the tracks easy to digest for the audience and that puts the music and emotion front and center.
The two songs bookending the album, “I need better sneakers” and “Lost and Found”, go even further by being presented as raw recordings of a playthrough. Overall, I feel this piece is special. By being so simple, direct and approachable, “Trauma Stew” gains tremendous emotional weight. The individual songs are not overly sad or happy; they are simply glimpses into another persons life, with it’s ups and downs. This is music that invites the listener to feel, think and relate. It’s beautiful in it’s honesty and I wholeheartedly recommend it.
Ether Diver’s Other People’s Music:
But you’re not my baby
A review of Buzzard’s Mean Bone
https://mephistophilizer.ghost.io/but-youre-not-my-baby/
Previously…
The Nirvana Fallacy (or, Mania and Her Sophomore Slump) – Saint Louie
- They’re Everywhere by Jim’s Big Ego
- Smile, We’re All Gonna Die by The Cancellations
- Void by Vanessa Funke
- Rides Out by Hot Donkey #FeatureFriday
- #Feature Friday – Trauma Stew by Cynful Ukes
- Quartered: Songs of Palimpsest by S. J. Tucker
- Shapeshifer by Oblee #FeatureFriday
- Rayguns of Love by The Striped Bananas
- Mean Bone by Buzzard
- Aldona’s Daughter by Stunt Lover
- #FeatureFriday -Bandcamp Friday Issue
- #FeatureFriday – 1991 by Maisie Marra
- “Muay Thai Bag” by Foxcall
- A Place To Go When You Need To Hide by Rose Alaimo
- #FeatureFriday – And the Bones by Dr. Organ
- #FeatureFriday WIENER DEMEANOR by Cheer Captain
- #FeatureFriday – Effusion by Sweet Freeze
- Beginings Revisted by Jim France
- Recording in Progress by Aaron Smith
- Believer, a.k.a. The Last Shall Be the First
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