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From... M&d Musica And Dishi -October 1999

Eric Wood Illustrated Night /Production: Eric Wood for Romany Music Productions /Appaloosa- IRD AP 136 (**** 4 stars)

It's notable that in order for us to realize one of the most fascinating and potent American songwriters, Eric Wood had to first land in Italy. This is evidenced by the fact that the new York songwriter's second album is on the Italian Appaloosa label with executive production by Franco Ratti and the participation of a our very well known Cristina Dona'. Fortunately the aware choice was made to record the performances that matured during the '98 Italian tour and resulted in this album of ten fascinating songs that can't be categorized. Humid and warm like the Caribbean, melancholic and long-suffering like the endless winter nights, the music of Eric Wood caresses the ghosts of jazz and skirts the coasts of Latin America without betraying the expressive urgency of the best rock traditions. (an)

...from Rockerillo - October 1999
Eric Wood - Illustrated Night /Appaloosa

Two years we've waited for the logical continuation of Eric Wood's debut album, "Letters From The Earth." "Illustrated Night" is a collection of ten genuine stories from an independent soul whose songs resonate like those of his ancestor, Tim Buckley. The use of Wood's voice and instruments continues to honor the beauty of Blue Afternoon, one of the more special and psychedelic discs that Pope Buckley has given us. Wood apprentices in and supplies effective doses of the same tension releasing, dreamy matrix of musical language. Illustrated Night's most precious songs, " Let My People Go," "Fools Gold" and
"Second Chance" elude the commonplace like Buckley. This does not mean that Eric Wood is a ventriloquist of Buckley songs, but that he genuinely continues a similarly sensitive approach to styles and colors. The ten perceptive jazz and bitter blues songs on this album are approached with the same rare fragility and delicacy that Buckley dared. They go beyond the constellation of pop and rock, pulsating with sincerity and merging the veneers of jazz, blues and psychedelia into a redesigned style of elegant folk-rock. And it's not the specific words or sounds, but in the way he uses the language and components to expand sounds and fantasy. And it further illustrates the extraordinary talent of Eric Wood that he chose to collaborate on " Illustrated Night " with Cristina Dona for vocal parts. Ugo Bacci (**** 4 stars)

Interview of Eric Wood for Heap:
Endless Highway

Two years have passed since his debut disc. Now, the time has come for Eric Wood to confirm all the optimal impressions it created, and Illustrated Night is the best confirmation that it could be. Ten songs that evoke the spirits of an author who straddles the borders of jazz and religion

There are artists with strange histories and Eric Wood is a peculiar case. Until two years ago, it was a name like many, a so-called Mr. Nobody who traveled around the U.S. accumulating musical influences. Then it came to Letters From The Earth in which many detected the spirit, inspiration and jazz vocal styles of Tim Buckley in his music. Soon, a unanimous consenting chorus of Italian critics named the disc as being among the best of the year (this also occurred in a smaller way in the U.S. where the disc took ninth place in Billboard Magazine's year end critics' poll). Two years later, Illustrated Night, is another high-level album with the added, impressive surprise on three songs: the singer, Cristina Dona' -the intuitive choice of whom speaks directly about its music and the protagonist.

What are the differences between Letters From The Earth and Illustrated Night?

"The songs of the last album were mostly written in the last two years from a perspective I've recently been contemplating. Although some listeners might interpret this record as sounding like an attack on religion, I'd prefer to not be called an atheist because most people have the wrong idea of what that word really means. Disbelieving in a "creator" doesn't mean that what we think of as "creation" immediately loses value. I'm only entertaining the possibility that the so-called Creator at best exists in a much less definite way. If everything is indeed a creation, that still doesn't explain from where its creator came or in what place that creator exists, if not within creation itself. The idea of creation presumes another "not created" reality. If we can accept that, why not just accept that this reality wasn't created? Why answer one big enough mystery with another that's simply too big to explain? Calling our reality "creation" doesn't prove it was created or that there is a creator. Settling for this creator /creation idea, if wrong, would necessarily only perpetuate darkness. So I guess I'm addressing "believers" as though they were the ones in this darkness. I hope I can help shine at least the light of reason into it, rather than a light from an even darker source. That's what Illustrated Night is about. The last CD was about a guy still somewhat searching for salvation from a source he was becoming disillusioned with.

What makes a song good to you?
Usually if it illuminates something previously shrouded or unconscious in me. Often I write songs in order to clarify my own impressions.

Cristina Dona sings in three of the album's songs, How was this collaboration born?

A couple of years ago, Cristina invited to me to her wedding and asked me to sing at it. Although I'd heard her sing and loved her voice before that, I was entirely convinced I wanted her on the record when she came upstage and sang Endless Highway with me there.

Have you heard her debut disc, Tregua?
Yes, I love it. Cristina's my favorite singer.

How did you record the songs with her?

After completing some of the mixing here in the United States, I mailed her a DAT. Cristina added her vocals at a studio in Milan and sent them back to me to mix in.

In the disc there are also others two vocalists, Carol Lipnik and Kelly Flint. Who are they?

Carol sang all the back-up vocals on my first album. Kelly sings on Opus To Ecstasy. She's a good friend and the singer in the New York band, Dave's True Story.

Why have you used all these singers in the new disc?

I can only explain that I think any artistic expression is more complete when both sexes have a voice. For me at least, a feminine presence in my work adds to the eroticism I often want there.

Who else in on the disc, is it the same band that played on Letters From The Earth?

Jeff Berman (vibraphone) is the only one. The others are T Xiques on drums, Carl DeRosa plays string bass and Luis Perdomo the piano. We've performed live a lot together. I met T first, and he introduced me to the others. With the exception of Luis, who was touring South America with a jazz group at the time, we recorded the basic tracks at a studio near Ferrara called B&b Production di Vigarano Mainarda while touring Italy last year with the assistance of engineer, Carlo Alberto Bonazzi. After returning to New York, I listened back and realized that those tracks were certainly the ones I wanted to use for the new CD and overdubbed Luis's parts.

How do you see the fact that such a strong cult has been created for your music in Italy?

Letters From The Earth was at that time only distributed in the U.S. and Italy. It's only recently been released in other places. So far, received great reviews in European publications including Mojo in London. I've just received word of new reviews in France and Belgium. It's also been getting air-play in the Czech Republic and I'm touring there next November, before I come to Italy again (Eric Wood returns to Italy for concerts in December).

Illustrated Night exits on an Italian label; was it too difficult to make a deal in your Country?

These days, the massive amount of simultaneous coordination that's necessary in the U.S between labels, management, publicists, promoters, radio, and press requires huge capital investments and dedication within each of those entities. Plus, you have to get them all to concentrate on your project at the same time above all their other individual competing interests. I have neither the money nor the necessary time and inclination to make this happen and still be able to concentrate on my music!

You still live in New York? What do you find so compelling about such a large city? I've had an apartment in NYC for twenty years. But I don't spend much of the year there. Usually I'm at a mountain cabin I constructed north of NYC in the Catskills. I prefer living there. My relationship with the city has changed. It's become very difficult to remain in a place that's now so oriented toward traders and money.

What you are listening to these days? What is your preferred music at this moment?

My new favorite is singer-songwriter, Rebecca Martin. You might know her from a Polygram CD she did with her former group, Once Blue. Her music has come to a crescendo since then. Now she's playing with other musicians that includes the Pat Methany group's bassist. But I find myself mostly listening to instrumental stuff without vocals like, Stan Getz and recently, to Serbian guitarist, Dusan Bogdanovich.

What are your plans for the future?
I'm forging through the wilderness, I don't even know if there's something out there to plan for. I don't mean to say that I'm not concentrated on anything, only that I couldn't concentrate if I was planning my future. For now, there are concerts in the U.S. and Europe.

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