With "Adaptive Fiction," singer-songwriter James Austin Melton calls us back to something quieter, truer, and undeniably more human. This two-song release feels like opening a long-dormant letter with familiar handwriting.
"Adaptive Fiction," recorded in one evocative session at Soundplex Studios in July 2024, with a few thoughtful touches added at home, is not just a musical release. It's a moment. The one you sit with, the one that lingers in your chest long after the last note has died.
The collection begins with "Pillow's Door," a song that comes not so much to start as to show up, in a sideways way, like a dream. James Austin Melton's acoustic guitar is where it starts, and he is agitated as his voice walks us through a soundscape of flexible keys and time signatures. It's delicate without being fragile, teetering on that rare range in which technical complexity serves the story rather than the reverse. On percussion, Adam Gresko and Trevor Rogers provide rhythms that breathe. Gabe Preston's alto sax twists in and out like memory but is gloriously alive.
"Pillow's Door" is less about getting somewhere than navigating the inner hallways of the imagination and yearning. It encapsulates that vague and slippery netherworld you find yourself in as you edge into sleep when nothing is known, and anything is possible.
"Adaptive Fiction" distills James Austin Melton's growth as a songwriter who is adventurous enough to explore the gray areas of genre and emotion. With this release, he's doing more than writing songs. He's creating worlds and asking us to get lost in them.
Tags:
Jazz