Farma

“Now here's an idea that I would have never come up with on my own: psychedelic heartland rock. While farma's earnest vocals & jangly guitars remind me of Springsteen or Creedence, there's some post-Beach Boys/Stereolabby influences in there as well. The arrangements are spacious, often drenched in reverb, and frame the vocals quite well. If bands like farma could influence crap-meisters like Matchbox 20 and Counting Crows, I might actually listen to the radio once in a while.” – Jeremy - 75 or less album reviews (http://www.75orless.com)

[Jody Said]
Here's a beautiful, restrained, and idiosyncratic Americana-ish ballad from the formidable San Francisco quintet Farma. From a twinkly, slightly psychedelic start, "Jody Said" proceeds with great assurance over territory that would feel downright quirky if it didn't likewise seem so familiar. The song combines the gruff delicacy of Son Volt with the jazz-inflected chord flavors of Steely Dan, fleshing out the strong melody with a lazy, soaring steel guitar and noodly keyboards. When the verse returns after an instrumental break in the middle, everything coalesces, and as the melody gets to that place where it modulates and extends beyond the frame ("I'll be dreaming in this bar, eternally"), the enterprise levitates to that place where the effect of a song transcends the particulars of its construction. "Jody Said" will be found on the band's self-titled EP, soon to be released on Wishing Tree Records. The MP3 is on the band's web site.
- This Week’s Finds

Bay Area quintet Farma's self-titled EP is a confident dip into the deep ocean of textured, spacey Americana and ambitious, song-driven guitar rock. The opener, "New World Baby", is a mid-tempo pop song that evokes late-period Wilco with an Alex Chilton bridge thrown in for good measure. "Jody Said" is a breezy AM radio homage marked by pretty vocal harmonies while "Tokyo Lucky Hole" sees the band gently expanding the sonic pallate with various keyboards and percussion instruments layered in the mix. The slow burning guitar tremolo and sustained feedback on the lengthy "Midnight Rider (or Hallucinations Outside of Fontana)" suggest that Farma learned as much from Rust Never Sleeps as Summerteeth. Closer "Black Moon" is straight-forward finger-picked acoustic ballad that could have conceivably come out at any point over the last four decades. All in all, the band takes on a number of differnt styles and textures while keeping one foot firmly planted in the canon of American classic (both old and new) rock. The Farma EP is a very satisfying and promising debut from a band that's anxious to take its place at the table. - by roony - Blue Mag (http://bluemag.com)