Isaac Hadden Organ Trio – The Glue (Album)

Music connects people. It connects the artist to the listener, it connects fans, and it connects fellow musicians. That’s a beautiful aspect of music, and it’s one that the Isaac Hadden Organ Trio has used to realize breathtaking musical projects.

Their new album “The Glue” which was just released last month is a showcase of talent, skill, passion, and an unreal amount of natural flow. It’s like there’s always a mutual understanding, a bond between every musician, which results in a groove-loaded energetic output every time.
Starting with “No Service”, the album kicks off with a steady guitar-based drive that gets you moving in a very natural way. The guitar takes the lead, as the backing creates a steady and busy atmosphere that feels like one of these effective business days. Busy, but not hectic. The scenery of the tune is constantly changing, and the melodies and rhythms feel like walking through different rooms of energy.

“Dirty Lies” walks on a more groove-soaked path. With fellow partners in crime Rebekah Todd and Nate Werth on board for the tune, the track gets its soul upgrade through vocals really blending well with the backing. You gotta love the seamless mix of flow and soul happening, it almost feels like the vocals and guitar are buddies, telling their stories to each other in a wholesome warm textured atmosphere. The next track, “Always There”, uses the same warmth, but adds an exciting and mysterious layer. With a relaxed bass and rhythm base, the tune builds a unique atmosphere that is really hard to describe. Have you ever moved to a new location where you never were before? The track feels like a soundtrack to such a scenario. As you find out new spots and locations, you start from being defensive but gain confidence over time. That’s the same the track does, it evolves from shy and shadow-ish to confident sax melodies, welcoming and embracing the new situation. You gotta love the storytelling aspect of the music without even using one word.

And then, there’s “Magic” in the air. Playful arpeggios, and the by this time well-known guitar, open this chapter of the book before making way for the warm and emotional vocals. As before, there’s this awesome harmonic vocal duo happening on the track. The voices carry an affectionate vibe, giving the tune a certain – let’s call it – “majestic aura”, which gives the track this unexplainable lush effect on the listener, even allowing rhythm changes coming so naturally that no one would question them. The fun-and-funk-soaked “Hot Polutix” brings a new kind of flow to the table. With the vocals riding on the smooth waves of the backing, the track adds a certain fever-dream component that never feels overly psychedelic but is free of any regulations or boundaries.
What I love about the works of Isaac Hadden Organ Trio and all of their collab artists is the fact that there simply are no boundaries. They mix and blend not only all of the instruments, but also the genre-specific mood patterns and dynamics. And the result always feels kind of natural and easy-going.

“Dynamite” has a very unique vibe connected to it. I’d probably describe it as a laid-back, smiling groove. While the slow groover is attached to seen-it-all vocals, the track feels wise and relaxed, although there are many things happening in the back, so to speak. Any element and snippet happening in the tune helps to build this dense, hot base for the main characters to shine. And these characters of course are not only the vocals, but the prominent instruments as well. Once again this tune highlights the fact that the story is told by the instruments as much as the vocals. “Crazy People” has a funky-flavored nighttime texture attached to it. While the groove makes the listener slightly move, there’s once again this mutual understanding of vocals and guitars happening. Closing the album is “The Glue”. As the name-giver of the whole album, the track feels like one last embrace, one last hug from the artists to the audience. The tune is a slow, fun, and wavey closing-time-styled theme that for me describes the end of a day, a chapter, or (in this case) an album perfectly. Presented with a smile and wah-soaked patterns, the tune sort of “cleans the mess” that the whirlwind of energy and passion of the whole album might have created. And for one last time, it gives the stage to the main characters of the whole story that has been told by the album.

All in all, it’s safe to say that every single note of what you hear on “The Glue” isn’t just a learned technique. It requires the musicians to do what they do from the soul and heart, not the mind. And it’s exactly this passion that makes the music so effective. This flow and groove simply have to be engraved in your DNA, and the versatile nature of the tracks proves without a doubt that the guys of the Isaac Hadden Organ Trio and their surrounding gang simply live and breathe music. The result is a perfect blend of improvisation and reproducible song crafting. Being a musician, and having done both of those things but always separately, I can honestly say this: I have absolutely no idea how they do it, how they are able to blend these techniques, but I love that it works perfectly. “The Glue” is a statement and proof that in the end, the only boundaries in music are what humans create themselves.