Nick Hans: The Magnolia Sessions (2021)

I do not believe there is currently a more enjoyable music series out there than ‘The Magnolia Sessions’ from Anti-Corporate Music. This was the fifth album, and as always features a musician performing underneath the magnolia tree in the back yard of the studio. If you were there that night, then this is what you would have heard, just a single performer with no audience, recording “naked”. We all have different views and opinions as to what pure music is, but for me it must be music which is performed live not created with studio trickery, and the purest form is a singer and his/her acoustic guitar. What I really enjoy about this series is that it is introducing me to musicians I would not otherwise have come across, and I know that anyone invited to partake in this series is someone definitely worth listening to.

Tonight, it was the turn of Nick Hans, and Anti-Corporate Music and Black Matter Mastering’s Dan Emery, who engineers The Magnolia Sessions, reveals, “When I first started planning the idea that would become The Magnolia Sessions, Nick was one of the first people I thought about for the project. I feel that it fully encapsulates his style of delivery. Raw, in the moment, and driven by the emotions in the room (or in this case, field). This particular evening was one of the more frustrating nights as far as the elements are concerned. The wind was unbearably strong at times, causing us to split the session into two parts, hence the change in environmental sounds.”

Some years ago, Nick found a cassette tape with Leadbelly on one side and Woodie Guthrie on the other, and he has been writing and recording his own material since then. This is the sound of someone living the life, and one can imagine him hopping on a railcar from one town to the next, just travelling with his acoustic and nothing else, discovering the world around him. That of course leads to stories of what he sees and the people he meets, and they become the foundation of his songs. With just the cicadas for accompaniment, Nick takes us on that journey, invites us unto his world with a voice which is rough and worn which is quite at odds with his delicate touch on the guitar. It feels natural, it feels real, and consequently it his us right in the heart and mind – there is no studio trickery or glossing over what happened as Dan’s job is to capture the emotion and the night, and he does that incredibly well.

This is yet another essential release in this series and I am already looking forward to the next one.

Rating: 8/10