Channel In Channel Out: The Author and the Narrator

The name of Marcus Cotten’s new project, Channel In Channel Out, defines his music perfectly, though probably not in the way for which he originally planned. In an attempt to produce a medley of simplistic and serenely calm tunes, his jarring track selection seems instead to instill the impatient feeling listeners might experience while scanning the radio to find the most applicable song for any given moment. Some tracks resemble the watery acoustic-folk of Jose Gonzalez, while others sound like a rip-off of the Postal Service, and this inconsistency causes the album to fall flat. So, although there is a great song here in the beautiful piano ballad “Kind Euphemism Part B”, the other nine songs on The Author and the Narrator are too scattered, which makes for a very underwhelming album.