The music of Fossil Ridge English teacher Tim Hanauer has always been exciting and surprising. It takes interesting turns, utilizes unique beats and instruments and reverberates a thoughtful, distinctive melody out of speakers and headphones. His past albums including “Boomerang” and “Time For Change” were stock full of songs about love, change, and childhood. Thus, it would only seem practical that Shape Shifter would follow this same pattern and emerge as yet another beautiful album by Hanauer. Though Shape Shifter does live up to the great expectations like its predecessors, it provides with it an even more distinguished vibe than the previous albums.
The steady beat of drums roll behind a banjo plucking notes and an electric guitar building up to the chorus. A bass guitar churns out deep, heart-pounding notes while string instruments beautifully create a melody under Hanauer’s soft yet powerful voice singing thought-provoking, heart-warming lyrics. The quickly moving title song “Shape Shifter” speaks with words such as “tell me in what shape I am? Tell me is there any plan?” where Hanauer appears to speaking of changing things about yourself to please everyone else. Then track 2, “Hooray for Love”, changes gears as it speaks about love being “the cure” and saying “hooray for love”. This track is the classic Hanauer as his lyrics seem to sprout from roots of love, and always believing in love pulling you through anything. These types of lyrics backed by a jazzy, grooving guitar centered melody are what have drawn people to listen to Hanauer’s music.
Hanauer strays from his usual ways to explore new things throughout this entire album and creates new magic for people to soak up. This seemed particularly striking in his song “The Hurricane Night”. A quick tempo drives the song powered by prominent bass notes struck in a pounding rhythm and the melody is simply plucked by a guitar while light shakers give the song some character. But, because the music is flowing and simple enough, Hanauer’s voice is set up to shine. The light harmonies ride above his own voice singing the melody that gives off a folk vibe. And, just like a hurricane night, the song continues to flow and as quickly as it started, it seems to be over. This song is catchy and will most likely be on repeat as people try to capture all its simple but beautiful aspects. And sometimes, as Hanauer has proved, a simple song is the most beautiful of all.
In the past, Hanauer has been compared to the artists Jack Johnson and John Mayer because of his clever lyrics, catchy melodies, and the tone of his voice. But, with the recent release of Shape Shifter, Hanauer has proved that he is an artist unlike the others. This album is filled with a very unique blend of instruments that flow perfectly together and still allow his voice to be the driving force of the songs as he shares unique thoughts about love and time and happiness and, well, life. And he not only shares those thoughts, he ensures that the song has a catchy beat and melody line that will get stuck in people’s heads. Hanauer not only released a new album for many people to enjoy, he released new life lessons and a new way to think about music. These songs aren’t just titles displayed on an iPod touch, they are passionate and beautiful encounters with life.
