Wood & Waste is what used to be called a cult record, a specialty of guitarist Tom Rodwell. In his revival of blues music as a vehicle for dance, Rodwell has embraced rhythms from spirituals and calypso in songs where the fundamental strength is in the feel, and the staying power lies in the story-like lyrics. “All the clues to a song are contained in the first bars of a primitive rhythm guitar part; it’s my job to inhabit that space and gradually tease the rest out,” he says. “You just have to pay attention when a song makes a left hand turn.”

An English artist presently moored in New Zealand, Rodwell has been supple enough to and seen him support acts like Otis Taylor, C.W. Stoneking and Leon Russell, with a parallel career as a session player live and on record with artists as diverse as Lonnie Holley, Robert Lamm and Don McGlashan, and delving into a host of avant-jazz projects. It should come as no surprise, then, when one hears influences from such brilliant and disparate artists as Bo Diddley, Randy Newman, King Sunny Ade and the Beach Boys.

“Make Believe,” tracked and overdubbed in one day, shimmers with layers of Mellotron and bottleneck slide and  bossa-nova percussion from jazz drummer Chris O’Connor. Tom Rodwell told Elmore about the inception and recording of the song:

“I wrote this in an attempt to cop a little of that late-’60s naïveté and cracked sunshine – Beach Boys, Love, the more interesting corners of Burt B. – with some samba window-dressing. Of course everything changes in the studio, and this version came out bittersweet, as if the narrator is waking up from slightly unsettling dreams,” Rodwell said.

“This song flew together so quickly, it was a joy to build it analogue, without gimmicks like click-tracks,” he said. “It means so much to the process to not be staring at computer screens, just absorbing the sound of a song through our ears, not our eyes.”

With percussion from Chris O’Connor and Jeff Henderson, notorious New Zealand free jazz multi-instrumentalists and Rodwell’s own amps and a revolving Leslie speaker creating the illusion of a bass player, Wood & Waste was tracked live to tape on The Who’s old Neve Console at Neil Finn’s Roundhead Studios NZ, with no click or edits.. Release is released on October 22, 2021, with a first run of 500 x 180gram LPs by Pallas, Germany.

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