September 2019 – By Eric Schuurmans, Rootstime.be - Belgium
“ An electric journey of sound with a signature blend of earthy rock and blues… “
[Translated from Dutch]
Madison Galloway, she is Canadian and resides in Ontario, just 19 and emerging roots musician / multi-instrumentalist. She made her debut with "Moon & Mercury" a few months ago. At a very young age Madison became passionate about the love for nature, community and roots music. She first studied classical piano and as a teenager she discovered the guitar, the instrument that would determine her further career. For her songs, she found inspiration in her upbringing, in the things that happened around her and environmental problems. Madison performs solo, as a duo and with a band.
After an EP "Who Knows Where" there is now "Moon & Mercury". The album is a collection of her own songs in which she mixes folk, rock and blues with her extensive collective elements and adds some worldly accents, sometimes from far beyond the borders, via the chosen instruments (sitar, tanpura, hurdy gurdy, tabla ...). adds. For the recordings she worked with no less than 8 musicians: Jonathan Markov (slide & e-guitar, bass, trombone, b-vocs), Jody Brumell & Carmello Anthony (drums), Breanne Morrison (keys), Ron Hawkins (e- guitar, vocals, b-vocs, piano, keys, tambourine), Christopher Dicran Hale (sitar, tanpura), Ben Grossman (hurdy gurdy, accordion) & Ed Hanley (tabla).
She enthusiastically opens the album with a song about the relative things with “Can't Buy Time”. In the song she accompanies herself on acoustic guitar and harmonica. Love is not a game in "Love's Not a Game" and "Devil in Her Eye", in which she reminds me in style of the (closed) Barbajack duo (singer Becky Tate). In the title song “Moon & Mercury” Jonathan Markov's slide guitar stands out and, for “Beginnings & Ends” it is his trombone and the time that gets you in trouble. The secular is full in the instrumental “Coffee Stains”, in which Christopher Dicran Hale opens on sitar and tanpura. Ben Grosman adds percussion on hurdy gurdy (a hurdy-gurdy, a kind of mechanized violin) and Ed Hanley on tabla drums. "Bye Bye" is a song she wrote on a social mission, where she had to choose a subject to research and present in a self-chosen medium. She did what she did best and wrote a song about the decline of the bee population and other pollinators due to chemicals. “Infectious Eyes” is a striking song because of the tempo changes, “Season of Treason” is a spicy duet with Ron Hawkins and the regular closing song, “My Baby Don't Care” a successful bluesy lament about the pain of divorcing: “my baby hey don't care no more… ”.
There is another "bonus" song after # 12. Madison chose “House of the Rising Sun” which is still very reminiscent of the version of The Animals. This so-called traditional, American (public domain) anthem. It has undoubtedly been covered hundreds of times, but remains best known in the r'n'r version by The Animals (1964). The oldest text found was written by William F. Burroughs and published in 1925. Later it was released in folk versions by Joan Baez in 1960, Nina Simone in 1961 and Bob Dylan in 1962. In 1969 the American rock band Frijid had Pink is another hit with it. Originally the song had more of a bluegrass sound and was first recorded by Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Stanley Foster in 1928 and later by Woody Guthrie (in 1940) as folk blues. According to some sources, the text, at least parts of it, dates back to the 16th century and the melody is said to have been derived from English folk.
Madison Galloway is an attractive young artist that we should not lose sight of. Her debut "Moon & Mercury" is an innovative and sometimes very surprising album, which knows no boundaries. Madison, trust it and go for it!
Read original review in Dutch here
Listen to Moon & Mercury here
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