Willy Mason
Where The Humans Eat

THE REVIEW

Every now and then, these great music mafiosos (just one among many, all the same, depressed in the same way) pick one up and promote them, giving them hope as they watch the river and don't know what to think - we always watch the river when we don't know what to think. The city is full of these losers (sellers and buyers): the pubs, the 30-seat clubs, the deserted streets of 3000 - they sing "you are the deepest groove of my heart" like that Indian poet who hurt a lot, then ended up like poets always do and flushed herself down the toilet.

What pushed Virgin to promote Willy Mason only heaven knows, yet they were quick to flush the toilet and so not even the street wanted Willy. "Hey, buddy," he writes in the booklet, "I don't know what the hell you have in mind to buy my CD, but at this point, write to me so at least we get to know each other." Of the millions who have picked up a guitar and mixed Nick Drake and Woody Guthrie, Willy is one of the luckiest because many have written and "Where The Humans Eat" is a little gem. Even Radiohead noticed, always proving they have a keen eye, and took him with them on their last tour.
"I like to sleep,‘cause when I sleep I dream of places I would be if I weren’t here right now” Willy sings while I lean over the river two thousand kilometers from home (but what home then?), always the same river, the same side, the same expression every time, the same girl dressed as a lady playing the piano for a pound while I wonder what the fate of poets is, and what mine is.
When we started, we were the same age, and in the worst case, in ten years he'll find himself where I stopped tonight.
A delicate and perfect intersection between country and folk, between the melancholy of one's own land and a traveling spirit, "Where The Humans Eat" is one of the most beautiful albums of recent years, almost entirely based on the sound of an acoustic guitar. One of my albums, truly my own, and now I recommend it to you.