Fool's Paradise, the latest offering from Kerrville New Folk winning duo Paul Kamm and Eleanore Macdonald, is their best yet. I've been a fan of Kamm and MacDonald since the first time I saw them in concert in 1995. Their recordings hold up well to repeated listening and are among those that find their way into my changer time and time again. Like experienced vintners, this duo's product -- their musicianship as well as their skill at producing their recordings -- keeps improving as the years pass, and with more than 20 years performing and recording together, they are setting the mark very, very high.

It's actually difficult to try to find appropriate superlatives to describe Fool's Paradise. It's such a fine piece of work that the term "quantum leap" kept coming to my mind, although the word doesn't quite fit. After all, this CD is MacDonald & Kamm's seventh effort, and necessarily part of an evolutionary process. But this offering, like a bottle of Bordeaux laid down years ago, has produced a vintage that discerning listeners will recall more than fondly. It contains a perfect blend of the many different aspects of songwriting, performance and production, such that the final result is something truly wonderful.

The first thing that struck me about Fool's Paradise was how good this CD sounds. The choice of instrumentation, mixing and other production values are as close to perfect as anything I've heard, including offerings from major labels. Kamm and MacDonald built and equipped their own recording studio and, with the assistance of Mikail Graham and "daughter supreme" Breelyn MacDonald, they have created an acoustic masterpiece. A listener could approach this CD as they would an instrumental recording, paying no attention to the words, and come away perfectly satisfied.

In a Rambles review a few years ago, I commented that the blending of two voices and one guitar lent a superficial "sameness" to each cut that took some time to dissipate as I developed a more intimate knowledge of the individual songs. I opined that this "sameness" might be avoided with less use of parallel vocal harmonies. While Kamm and MacDonald chose not to take my advice, in Fool's Paradise any hint of "sameness" is gone. I stand corrected. I couldn't tell you what's different, but I can say that this is CD is a cohesive, well-constructed work with lush harmonies and orchestration that is so gorgeous that a person could listen to it over and over again without paying any attention to the lyrics.

But oh, how they would miss out, because the lyrics are such well-written poetry that they too could stand alone. The combination of the two is what left me grasping for superlatives. In my allegorical "CD cellar," this is simply one of the finest vintages I've ever come across.

Fools Paradise wove a spell that enveloped me from the first instrumental introduction to the final stanza. On an emotional level, I was touched deeply by each and every song. Especially poignant were the cuts that related to recent and current events. "Josephine," a collaboration between Kamm, MacDonald and Bodhi Busick, is a lament concerning the events and aftermath of Sept. 11th. It also relates strongly to current events. As this review is being written, the government of the United States has just invaded Iraq. Once again I feel as if I have been torn asunder, and this CD is helping me process my emotions just as if these songwriters had reached into my heart and drawn on my own horrified reaction to these events as grist for their creative process. The lyrics from "Josephine" that follow apply equally well to events that had not yet transpired when the song was written:

"Like a shot heard around the world,
Like the only piece of news,
It choked any other thing that might have spoken true.
Just rally 'round the flag, boys, and demonize the foe
and turn those human faces into something that won't show.
Be careful what you say here
In the land of the free
'Cause the walls are closing in
In this age of certainty.
And all at once, tomorrow came suddenly...."

George Orwell almost had it right, but the year should have been 2003, rather than 1984. But Fool's Paradise offers a healing touch, too. I took great comfort in Kamm's "Let Love Remain:"

"Oh how the times have changed and still been the same. Yet through all these troubles love remains. So come lay your burden down, let your heart be true. There's nothing more you need do ... Don't call on tomorrow to show us the way, when the dust hasn't settled on today. It's only a changing sky -- the sun and the rain -- between what we've lost and what we'll gain. Tell the conductor not to stop this train. It's all right to weep now, cause you'll be back again. Let love remain...."

Mention must be made of the contributing musicians: Peter Grant on pedal steel guitar and dobro, Rob Bonner and Rich Stanmyre on bass, Keith Allen on guitar and dobro, Gary Campus on congas and brushes, Stephen Holland, Tony Unger, Nina Gerber and Tom MacDonald, all on guitar, and the man behind the curtain, one-man-band Mikail Graham on bass, fretless bass, guitar, EBow, atmospherics and electric sitar. They all contribute mightily to the polish that makes this CD gleam like the jewel that it is.

I can't recommend Fool's Paradise more highly.

- Rambles
written by Tim O'Laughlin
published 24 May 2003