Charlie Bruber started out slowly, building a name for himself in Minneapolis music circles (and elsewhere) primarily as a multi-instrumentalist and engineer. As is often the case, there is always an extra personal drive there to do your own music, in most cases as a singer-songwriter, whatever the results may be, for better or for worse.
Judging by Prized Burden, Bruber’s second solo outing and luckily for both him and all the listeners that venture into it, better is the direction he is moving in as a solo artist. No, Brugber is definitely not sticking to what is considered the ‘standard’ singer-songwriter formulas, although the album has that slow-building, often languorous feel.
The difference lies in the fact that Bruber has the ability to build his songs from more complex elements, and it doesn’t matter whether he is inspired here by the greats like Nick Drake and John Martyn, as he shows enough creativity and inventiveness to make these songs quite his own.
And while Bruber does so many instrumental elements here on his own, it is a selection of additional players that plays an important part in making the arrangements of the songs tasteful and varied, giving the music an additional touch of distinction.
The quality of music Charlie Bruber presents on ‘Prized Burden’ just might not keep him in the musical shadows for much longer.
