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Tamas Wells is one of the most genuinely talented folkie popsters we have heard this century. His organic free flowing melodies are smooth and soothing...ultimately uplifting and thought provoking. Two Years in April is cut from the same fabric as Well's last album and features ten precisely focused tracks. We can't help but continue to compare Tamas' voice to the voice of the late great Kirsty MacColl...as both artists have a similar timbre and their phrasing can be almost identical at times. Two Years in April is a lovely album featuring smart, honest songs that come straight from the heart. Although he has had success in his native Australia as well as even bigger success in Japan...Wells still remains a curious unknown in the United States. Sad...but yet another example of how some of the best artists in the world hardly receive any recognition at all in America. Most folks in this depressing country are much more concerned with trendy fashion and temporary pop than they are with credible genuine artists. No matter. In the end folks like Tamas Wells will win...because they create credible music that will stand the test of time. Keen reflective songs include "Fine, Don't Follow A Tiny Boat For A Day," "For The Aperture," "Signs I Can't Read," and "Grace And Seraphim." The strings on this album are superb. Highly recommended. (Rating: 5+++)

•  http://www.babysue.com/2008-August-LMNOP-Reviews.html#anchor42126

A relocation that’s an interesting career move to say the least

Melbourne musician Tamas Wells spent a few years on the music circuit fronting his self-named band and serving up a gentler, airier antidote to rock’s prevailing heavier mood of the day. But that all changed when he moved to, of all places, Burma’s capital Yangon in early 2006 (which could be seen as one reason for this album’s title, although there’s actually a conceptual basis to these ten songs). He’d been to Burma before and wrote his last album there, but this one was also recorded in the country, with Wells doing everything but the viola. But, if you didn’t know that, it wouldn’t show in this finely prepared collection. It begins amiably enough with the impossibly light lilt of Fine, Don’t Follow A Tiny Boat For A Day and though the mood darkens towards a death (The Day That She Drowned, Her Body Was Found) and a funeral (Grace And Seraphim), Wells keeps things restful, delicate and quite warm. And, in the end, it’s these more inviting feelings that carry the day. Every album Wells has recorded so far, either with a band or solo, has quietly won more converts and I expect no less of this one too.

It’s probably more acoustic folk than anything. His press release says he’s a Melbourne born Burmese resident who’s big in Japan. But the big question is - as with any product review - is it any good? The answer is yes, yes it’s just fine thank you. It’s polite, nice, pleasant, pretty - all of the above. I wouldn’t walk five hundred miles for it, but it does make for ideal accompaniment during light tasks. It’s just a man with a guitar, banjo, percussion, wistful voice and a friend with a viola (Jo Griffiths). No lumps, bumps or surprises here, but in a good way.

Certain artists such asSufjan Stevens love a good long-winded song title (and subtitle). Although there have been far worse offenders, look at these few examples from Tamas Wells. Without their individual subtitles there’s Fine, Don’t Follow A Tiny Boat For a Day; also The Day That She Drowned, Her Body Was Found, or 14 Acacia Court, Sanctuary Green 3093, which I believe is the address for any leftover words not already claimed by folk singers. If you asked me to specifically deliver the Wells cut Three Courses and an Open Canoe, I’d probably get it wrong and play I Want You to Know It’s Now or Never without realising. It’s not like this is someone repeating charismatic words like “Beat It” to a funky back beat, nor is he scripting some three-part vignettes each sharing a common theme, but just plain honest musings on a disc that after starting with a whispered “…2, 3, 4…” concludes even more modestly.

Two Years In April might refer to two things. Firstly, the time it will have taken Tamas Wells to record this, his third album of gentle, unassuming folk tunes. Twenty-four months or 10 tracks of sweetly picked melodies, heady singing and the occasional banjo. It’s a settled, gradual work, sometimes so modest it threatens to drop off the speakers. You’re not expecting anything, you find a quietly pleasant record.

Think again, though, and it might recall a fated two-year seafaring journey of a young couple. Look to the lengthy, somewhat incongruously gushing and momentous song titles (and subtitles!) that signpost vessels boarded and places visited. Or the almost coastal feel to his instrumental work, like banjos on the sand and ships to shore. Still friendly and fragile, but.

Towards its close, Two Years In April reveals the purpose and weight that was hitherto just a tiny shaft of light. Penultimate ‘Signs I Can’t Read’ evokes the grief of nostalgia, as words literally disappear from his singing like it’s too much and gradually sawing (not soaring) viola overcomes the taut and melancholic guitar. It’s like a undeniable stir beneath and its cause to reconsider everything that came before. Sure, all covered up again for ‘Grace And Seraphim’, like never happened (the suffocation of a wake) – but you know that it did and that’s something strong to take away.

http://www.messandnoise.com/releases/2000115

Frustratingly, the music of Australian expat Tamas Wells is still unavailable in North America, although after his last record was a bit of a hit in Japan he’s readily available there. Wells moved to Burma (or Myanmar, if you want to get technical) back in 2006 while putting together his second album A Plea en Vendredi and lives there still. Which has no obvious sonic effect on his music, then or now; all three of his records are the same kind of sun-kissed, impossibly relaxed (yet somehow still a little dark) acoustic reverie, the kind of thing that gives the likes of Jack Johnson an especially bad name by showing how close they are to something that’s actually beautiful, intriguing and often moving.

If this were a just world, A Plea en Vendredi would have gotten the same quantity and quality of praise that, say, Our Endless Numbered Days did—like Sam Beam, Wells is blessed or cursed with a voice that is always soft and pleasant and so gets away with singing far stranger songs than you might expect, but unlike Beam he’s remained resolutely quiet and small scale (sonically and economically). Two Years in April is if anything more streamlined—no gorgeous instrumental miniatures like “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Ruling Class”, or droning dreamscapes like “Open the Blinds”. The songs here are consistently enjoyable but the lack of variation is missed a bit. But even a good-not-great Tamas Wells album is miles above what most of his contemporaries can produce, and when he hits his stride on a song like “The Day She Drowned, Her Body Was Found” or “Grace And Seraphim” there is little music being made today that is as sublime. Now get him some proper international distribution, please.