I have long been fascinated with music that was recorded by a single person. As my friend and colleague Dave Kopperman (himself an underappreciated master of this approach) has pointed out, there is the potential for the results to have a synthetic quality. Indeed, at their worst, songs recorded in this manner sound artificial, not to mention wonky due to the virtual inevitability of the artist having limited proficiency on at least one of the instruments. At their best, though, these songs not only avoid these pitfalls but also display as close as one can reasonably get to an unfiltered view of the sounds going through that artist’s own head.
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