Review: David Hawkins of Be Shares Imagination and Innovation on ‘Here’

Updated:

December 28, 2023 9:34 pm

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BE
HERE
(New Garden)
****

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When your band is named Be, and you dub your new album Here, it’s immediately apparent that cleverness counts. Fortunately, that only hints at all band leader David Hawkins has to offer on his first offering in seven years. His third outing overall, Here is an ambitious, adventurous, and expansive set, one which spreads invention and experimentation across 15 songs in all.

It’s a credit to both Hawkins’ creativity and credibility that he has managed to assemble a sprawling cast of collaborators, most of whom have sterling credentials of their own.

Those taking part include the Jayhawks’ Gary Louris, Elvis Costello’s steadfast drummer Pete Thomas, Mott The Hoople keyboardist Morgan Fisher, Brian Wilson’s musical director Paul Von Mertens overseeing the horn arrangements, and multi-versed session player and trumpeter Max Crawford adding the brassy flourishes.

The results run the gamut from freeform psychedelia and raga rock to music with more of a poppy pastiche. Nevertheless, any attempt at a definitive description doesn’t do the music justice. Comparisons to the Beatles in Sgt. Pepper mode, and the Beach Boys’ parlaying Pet Sounds offer some hints as to Hawkins and company’s more obvious inspirations, but those are only reference points at best. The eerie pastiche that frames “I Need You Like the Sun,” the stomp and shimmer of “Don’t Cry,” the repetitious refrain that defines “Mad About Zoe,” and the cheery “Subterranean Homesick Blues” — the latter an obvious nod in name only to a classic Bob Dylan tune — are flush with sumptuous arrangements that can often make the melodies and lyrics simply seem second measure. The rich musical tapestry and otherworldly ambiance lend the album a surreal sensibility, one that veers from cosmic cacophony to a decidedly spiritual solace.

Alternately hallucinatory and hypnotic, Here is akin to an out-of-body experience, one that stirs the senses in both moving and mediative ways. Hawkins deserves credit for sharing his imagination and innovation, leaving in his wake one of the most riveting, remarkable, and fastidious fusion of sounds heard in quite some time.