What makes “Favorite Side” stand out is minor chords, elegantly picked acoustics, laying out a framework for his vocal to jump in and sing about how “You were the favorite side of me,” as banjos, guitars, and keys join in for some unison playing that evolves to take the song interesting places. “Let’s Pretend!” takes another path it is a fun and funky piece of pop that shows both Reed’s light side and his guitar chops, as keyboards and guitars make the feet tap–and the chorus, seriously, goes “whoo-whoo.” It is a highlight on a disc with several. Beautiful acoustic guitar chords usher in “Neon Blue,” and Reed hits pay dirt again, with echoes of backing vocals and keyboard accents surrounding his lyrics, “Did we have a system?/ Did I ever listen?/ You know I blur my vision so well.” This track is better than almost all of Tusk. “The Low Resistance” opens, a rare track for a disc with few obvious influences to clearly sound like early ‘80s Fleetwood Mac–if they had made better singles. His vocals are mostly upper register and falsetto, and he wisely blends in plenty of warm harmonies to beef them up his instincts as an arranger are nearly flawless. He has released a solo CD, Medium Fidelity 2015-17, recording and playing all the instruments on ten originals. Since 2014, he’s been a virtual cottage industry of original music online, with nearly 50 Soundcloud recordings and a YouTube channel with dozens of uniformly imaginative downloads. He plays all types and manners of guitars, keyboards, and percussion, and was one of the reasons for the razor-sharp sound on the early albums by local phenomena Steam Powered Giraffe–he played on and recorded their debut and is all over their MK III disc. Michael Philip Reed is a young one-man-band, studio savant who has combined computer tech and musical talent to make his own unique brand of contemporary pop on his own terms.
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