George Harrison’s son creates a new sound on his debut solo album
Dhani Harrison sits in a unique position in the music industry. He’s certainly extremely talented, but most of his name recognition stems from being the son of legendary Beatles member George Harrison. When the elder Harrison passed away, his son was granted access to some of the most revered names in music, and his evident talent allowed him to become some of their regular collaborators. He’s played in several bands and is often involved in re-working old Beatles tracks, but despite all this Harrison hasn’t been able to bring out his own voice and shake his moniker as George’s son. But now, at age 39, Harrison has finally released his long-awaited debut solo album, IN///PARALLEL.
Given his father’s fascination with Indian music and the fact that his first name is a combination of two notes in the Indian music scale, the raga influences run rampant through 10 eccentric, freewheeling tracks. It’s evident as soon as the intro track “Never Know” gets underway, a song which fuses very traditional Indian sitar and percussion with reverb-heavy industrial production washing over the top. The artificial grindings get much louder over the biting “#WarOnFalse,” and in it Harrison’s lyrics and overall vocal style are both cautious and cryptic.
Unfortunately, this distinct and well-crafted sound gets monotonous, as the only escapes from the avant-garde indie-electro mishmash are the occasional guitar solo (“Summertime Police”), string orchestration (especially on “London Water”) and female counter-vocals (on several tracks). Otherwise, it’s just open drones and calculated static throughout the whole thing.
Don’t be fooled by the monotony though, the album itself is very good. People hoping for a strong Beatles presence on the younger Harrison’s solo record will be pleased, as will the people hoping for Dhani’s own distinct sound. His status as the child of a generational musician provides him a nice cushion, as Harrison will certainly draw a large audience on name recognition alone, regardless of the quality of the music.
Even though at times the album’s actual content falls a little bit flat, the ability of Harrison to think outside the box to create such a distinct sound is impressive by itself. It’s a wonderful solo debut, and something he’ll be able to build upon if he chooses to write more in the future.
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