Bahamas: Pink Strat

Bahamas
Pink Strat
(Brushfire Records/Universal)
[Rating: 3 stars]

Perhaps what’s most surprising about Pink Strat, the album by Afie Jurvanen who records as Bahamas, isn’t the Jimmy Buffett meets Joe Purdy sound accented with riffs from – surprise! – a pink Fender Stratocaster. It’s that Jurvanen could write such a summertime soundtrack in the dead of winter in rural Ontario, Canada.

Yet that’s just what the guitarist/pianist, arguably best known for his three-year stint with Feist, does on this 12-song collection. Moving from stripped down acoustic tunes such as the love song “Sunshine Blues” (“Who could love you more than me? No one could love you more than me.”) and the lonely search for romance in “Let the Good Times Roll” (and no, this isn’t anything like the Cars’ classic song) to the hint more up tempo “Hockey Teeth,” Jurvanen creates acoustic pictures of swaying palm trees, warm, sandy beaches, and drinks with those little paper umbrellas. Don’t have time to drive to the beach, unwind and reflect? Pink Strat will get you there.