As an artist, presenting your ideas and visions through the eyes, thoughts, and other senses of another person is possibly one of the hardest things to achieve successfully. Doing it through six other persons, six other artists, might seem as an impossible task.
Yet, for al Riggs, a guy residing in Durham North Carolina, based on his latest album Themselves, that doesn’t seem to be such a hard thing to do. Riggs attempts to look at daily lives (and ends) of six different artists through their own eyes – and doesn’t end up flat on his back (in his kitchen, possibly), but comes out with flying colors, both musically and lyrically.
If you delve a bit deeper into Riggs’ opus over the last 10, 11 years so far this actually may not come up as a complete surprise, because Riggs has so many releases, that it might take you a few days to get through all of them, superficially, at least. Add to that the fact that Riggs usually records mostly everything himself and that possibility to shape shift doesn’t turn out to be such an impossible task.
What is even more impressive about Themselves is the fact that Riggs’ lo-fi approach gives the whole project another truly human touch making his six different viewpoints quite believable.
In times when as listeners we rarely devote albums more than one listen, Themselves definitely begs repeat helpings, and quite probably, setting apart some considerable time to listen to Riggs’ complete catalog.
