Tim Cohen wants make you aware of life‰۪s imperfections; he likes to play devil‰۪s advocate‰Û_or maybe he‰۪s more like the devil‰۪s buddy, offering up his own dark but playful asides. On Luck Man, the Fresh & Only‰۪s and Magic Trick frontman‰۪s first solo record for Sinderlyn, Cohen has created a lush, insular world that deals with the uneasiness of accepting life‰۪s inherent flaws. Recorded in his attic and at El Studio in San Francisco after recently moving back to a city he longed called home, Luck Man is a personal statement distilled from Cohen‰۪s own experiences. ‰ÛÏI draw upon little moments and memories to make music,‰ he says. ‰ÛÏI like to think I‰۪m leaving bits of wisdom behind, but I don‰۪t possess the wisdom for longer than it takes to make a song. I inherit it momentarily, write it down, attach a melody that fits the words in rhythm, and then record it.‰ Attempting to answer the unanswerable, Cohen aims to fill this existential void with his songwriting. The intricacies of tracks like ‰ÛÏI Need A Wife‰ and ‰ÛÏJohn Hughes‰ belie Cohen‰۪s seemingly simple writing process where warmth and comfort meets a questioning anxiety. However, there‰۪s always more to each song than meets the eye. Influenced by Van Morrison‰۪s Veedon Fleece as well as his one-time day job as a delivery driver (see ‰ÛÏMeat Is Murder‰) and other daily travails, Cohen eschews focusing on overarching topics like love, hope or despair and, instead, creates his own stories with fleeting, yet quietly complex characters and thoughts. After over a decade of writing and releasing music under various monikers, it‰۪s clear that Cohen is more than capable of producing a beautiful record, whether or not you want to dig deeper into life‰۪s nagging paradoxes is solely up to you.
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