Carey Ott - Lucid Dream

Lucid Dream is the perfect name for Carey Ott's new album. Like psychedelic folk music, it’s intelligible poetry with an ethereal quality of sound. Sleep-inducing sound. Sound so calm that it brings up memories of sitting on a porch, maybe in the South somewhere, falling asleep in the lazy sun. Forgive the abundant imagery: at his best, Carey Ott pulls off the effect with succinctly breezy melodies like “It’s Only Love,” supported by xylophones and harmonicas. At his worst, which is the majority of the album, his light falsetto is washed out by the blasé guitar, a dulling throb that sounds the same alone on “Sunbathing” as it does with a band in “Virginia.” Ott’s warbling notes and short breaths might be attractive for musical purists, but it’s unexciting, sleepy time stuff. If Ott really was influenced by “flower-power” rock, his songs aren’t nearly trippy enough, and tracks like “Shelf Life,” which use the same melodic flourishes (updated to the electric age), don’t pack enough zip. Soft and relaxing comes across as timid, and on a song like “Am I Just One,” it’s more frustrating than subtle. “Daylight,” the following track, gets it right by stepping off the shy notes long enough to make a pitch-shifting statement: “And/you’re still afraid of the dark/but you were daylight for me/when the sky was so black you couldn’t see/such a tiny star caught in a great big sea.” The way Ott hits that “and”—hard—makes you quiver, and gives a sign that he’s more than a thinker with a halfway decent voice. Carey Ott can get away with being quiet, but he’s got to be enticing too. The title track and “Hard to Change” both use a nifty overlapping chorus to great effect, and the distortion of the catchy beat on “I Wouldn’t Do That to You” makes for a solid hook. But on an album littered with insincere songs like “Kickingstones” or the light alternative of “Mother Madam,” there’s not enough to keep me listening. [www.careyott.com]