Written by: Dave Cantrell

Among the most interesting artists to wear the ‘singer/songwriter’ badge (a Brit that arrived in the US as a 12-year-old right when the British Invasion kicked off, a 60’s garage band drummer that lost both his right and arm and half his right leg to a subway accident in 1985), NYC-based Edward Rogers has just released his fifth solo album Kaye, a 12-song triumph directly inspired by – and dedicated to – the late great Kevin Ayers. Augmented once again by a crazy-talented roster of backing musicians including guitarists James Mastro from Ian Hunter’s band and Don Fleming, Roxy/Sparks bassist Sal Maida, Joe McGinty (Psychedelic Furs) on keyboards, and the Smithereens’ Dennis Diken banging the drums, among a host of others, Rogers turns in a spryly varied record, by turns elegiac (the moving and sparse title track), boisterous (a joyous take on Ayers’ “After The Show”), urban funky (the slinky, dark “No Color For Happiness”), chamber poppy (“What Happened To The News Today”), psych-folky (“Borrowed & Blue”), and more stretched hyphenates besides. It’s wonderfully all over the place yet glued together into a warm quirky cohesion by the soulful, sympathetic musicianship and Rogers’ incomparable flair for the earnest. “Fears Of The Unknown” could easily slip onto Mastro’s boss’s playlist while “Copper Coin” might well be the missing song from Colin Blunstone’s solo repertoire (Blunstone, by the way, was responsible for naming Rogers’ English folk-inspired trio the Bedsit Boys), both displaying, as does the record entire, an uncommonly deft ability to wrap the whimsy of imagination around the complicated mess of the human experience. Stereo Embers is honored to present an exclusive first listen to Kaye‘s poignant title track:

https://soundcloud.com/user2388028/kaye

Kaye is now available from Zip Records