"Himalayan Moon" is a CD of gentle soulful music with decent tunes and sympathetic accompaniment. It’s captivating stuff that you might use to wean your otherwise decent James Blunt supporting friends onto. Once with Delaney they could start to recover their hearing, polish their sensitivity and get ready for further journeys towards the great landmarks of popular song.
Delaney doesn’t do demanding music here and he doesn’t write difficult or sense-changing lyrics. But on a good mainstream radio station, his would be the right voice to advocate real music to the people who didn’t want to be too rattled by what they heard as they drove to work. It would be if was in charge, anyway.
The general run of the music has a country/folk feel to it. It could be a stripped down Wilco, maybe. As producer, Garius Hill has done a fine job, choosing touches of keyboard, piano, cello, sax or mandolin to keep the changes ringing and to accent the emotionally crucial moments. Five additional musicians are credited. The acoustic guitar and basic rhythm section is lightly unobtrusive, as it should be, and Delaney's voice (occasionally double tracked) has a relaxed strength and depth. The songs are supple things with a natural feel in the James Taylor, Don Henley tradition. Essentially folk with the inevitable embellishments of rock, jazz and world music.
"Somebody's Song" has both the most memorable tune and the only questionable production decision on the CD (a scruffy harmonica part). But each of the 12 songs stands up for itself. None break the mood of stoic optimism, chastened by recent, uncertain loss. Mature balance is a phrase that comes to mind.
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The poetic themes cover restless travelling, homecomings, the cosmopolitan city, brief encounters and reluctant goodbyes. There are hints (in the title not least) of spriritual explorations. The songs are dreamy and poignant and the lyrics have a non-specific ambiguity that leaves space for personal involvement and individual significance. "Dancing To Heaven" could be a brave submission to fatal disease, it could be farewell to a revered Hollywood star or a paeon to long lost love. It's a delicate art that Delaney pursues here.
For me this impressionistic approach sometimes falters. Now and again a more concrete image is evoked and draws me into a vivid line of thought that is suddenly confounded or dropped. We have a couple walking the grey streets of Paris. But "all night"? They're not grey at night. We have a boulevard (which one?) and a gondola and a train, Irish hills and planes crossing oceans. But no more development than the first mention. The images trail off into generality and wistful long stares of meaningful silence.
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