First some context. This Is You At Your Best is a personal project by Christopher Wahamaki, who is the literary brainchild behind the album. Writing all the vocals and music for the album’s nine songs (aside from the music of “Focal Point,” which was written by Sophia Boudeliou) over over the course of 19 credit hours (he was still in school while creating it), Wahamaki believed he ended up with a psychedelic-folk album with his recording buddy David Bolema, who managed all the mixing, recording, and background instruments.
While a few acoustic tropes are thrown in for good measure– distant harmonica playing, sparse violin, and backing female vocals done by local brooding-femme artisan Fiona Dickinson, the album feels more like an alternative rock performance than an out-there psychedelic-folk concoction. The opening song “Homeward,” seems to have more in common with Joe Jackson’s Big World– an echoing, live, stadium performance where the audience was asked to hold the applause in between songs, then The Jefferson Airplane or The Grateful Dead.
This Is You At Your Best
Rather than focusing on psychedelic, stripped-down acoustic meddling or watery distorted grooves, listeners are introduced to an album that features amped-up, arena-style acoustic ditties. Wahamaki’s songs feel more at place during drunken strolls through rain-slicked city streets dotted with neon signs than a fire-pit where everyone is tripping on mushshrooms. That being said the album is pay-what-you-want on bandcamp and thus cheaper than both of those activities, so I recommend dropping a buck for a solid, local, rock-album.
DITKalamazoo 