J. Morarty has, in recent years, lived in Morocco, the Maghrib, the West Bank, and Appalachia and now resides in Ohio. ‘Ride Side’ takes in this rootlessness and lack of stability, mixing it all up in a Covid Quarantine-induced haze into a transpositional, transportive piece which puts the listener into the time and place Moriarty occupied when composing.
Gently acoustic, beautiful strummed guitar chords pushing the melody along behind a vocal from Moriarty steeped in sixties or seventies Gram Parsons Americana mixed with Evan Dando’s ‘ All My Life’ or the quieter, chilled moments of the ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’ album – think ‘Hanna & Gabi’ or ‘My Drug Buddy’ and you’re pretty close – before the suddenly off-tempo slapped-percussive ‘ooh ooh ooh’ bridge catches you unaware, bringing in the full psychedelic Leslie-cabinet instrumentation and reminds you that this is a modern, thoroughly grown-up track that twists and turns stylistically through handclaps and bass-line led pop, but all held together masterfully by Moriarty’s soulful vocal delivery.
Hear ‘Ride Side’ on Spotify, and follow J. Moriarty on Instagram and Facebook.
Review by Alex Holmes