In his third album, Testing Your Patience, Louka proposes a provocative listening approach. As a musical story, Testing Your Patience alludes to an introspective beginning, marked by minimal instrumentation rooted in the guitar and voice. A well-balanced, vintage style guitar reverberates in a room captured by a classic microphone. At times we can hear the reflections of mandolins or ukeleles on a hardwood floor or an old staircase. Gradually, drama develops with harmonic tonalities that span from bright to dark, often going to the far ends of the spectrum. Often unexpected shifts result in songs with ethereal or cathartic qualities.
Louka displays variations in a lyrical style that is poetic in nature. We find transposing patterns within the same song, taking us to a different place from one moment to the next. Lyrics are simple but multifaceted, some slightly otherworldly or dreamy, others strikingly and unexpectedly direct. Poetic or colloquial. Rich or unadorned.
Louka calls his genre Roots Crossover because the songs are connected to American acoustic music and often crossed with other genres. We hear the conventions of country music but the harmonic language of much darker world music that results in a new hybrid sound.
In Testing Your Patience, Louka celebrates acoustic sound. Without the use of effects we can hear things as they are, real.
Louka's Sound
Louka is an imaginative singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and teacher. His long career as a jazz guitarist has helped him become a versatile artist and establish himself in the world of Folk, Americana, rock, Latin and reggae. Testing Your Patience is his debut as Louka and his latest release since The Very Best of the Fingers (2012 on Layered) and The Optimistic (2008 on Layered).
