[Repost from V13; by Aaron Willschick, August 12, 2024]
As Naïm Amor shows us on his latest album, words are not a prerequisite for stories. He shows you why on his new single “The Start Over” and his new album Stories out now via Fort Lowell Records. Today marks the debut of the official music video for “The Start Over,” a hard-driving, colourful performance video that shows you just how good Amor is at the guitar. You see many close-up shots of his masterful playing, and while there are some lyrics, the guitar does most of the talking in this song.
For a guitar-based, mostly instrumental song, Amor shows you how it’s done, keeping things rocking throughout. The song never lets up, with a guitar sound reminiscent of an old Western film. You might even liken it to the iconic theme of Quentin Tarantino’s legendary film Pulp Fiction.
Explaining “The Start Over” and elaborating on the album, Amor tells us:
“The album Stories is an expression of not only a musical one but also one following a concept. The concept consists of displaying my interest towards diversity in music through different stories. These stories are rendered hopefully using one voice in a consistent homogenous style. ‘The Start Over’ song in particular is a story evocative of a great American freedom imagery, a guy that has nothing to lose anymore and only has the move forward for himself. Other songs are instrumentals, the title itself will be the only clue to direct the listener’s imagination.”
Stories is Naïm Amor’s twelfth record he has released since the mid-2000s. Born and raised in Paris and now residing in Arizona, he had time to finetune this record, maybe more than he liked when the pandemic lockdowns arrived. He emerged with a finished album featuring six instrumentals and three tracks with vocals. On the surface, Stories may not seem like an appropriate name for an album featuring two-thirds instrumentals, but when you dive deeper into the concept, it makes perfect sense.
For his latest album, Amor wanted to take a cinematic approach to songwriting. Within the songs is a story for everyone to discover and interpret in their way. Each track is meant to evoke images and feelings with the listener the one left to guide those feelings. The narrative of a human voice is unnecessary when you have songs like these. The tones, combination of instruments, and arrangements are intricate and complex. Each song can stand alone in its own right, but they work best as a group. It would suit Amor quite well if you buckled up your imagination for a ride, where textures and melodies will do all of the talking.
