Tony Petersen: A Soft Place to Land

Singer-songwriter Tony Petersen picked up a guitar at the age of 15 and it seems like he’s never put it down ever since. When the artist isn’t busy working with his band The Social Animals or his duo Jill & Tony or producing bluegrass albums for other artists, he engages himself in writing and recording songs on his own. Making music, for Tony, is less like a passion and more like a habit. Today, we look at the latest addition to the artist’s vast discography, A Soft Place to Land, which has been making waves on the internet for quite a while.

The greatest aim that A Soft Place to Land strives towards, is forging an intimacy with its listeners. Each composition is stripped-down, earthy and organic in its arrangement. Apart from Tony’s guitar chords and frantic banjo, there isn’t much production layered onto the pieces apart from a few occasional embellishments. The music, as a result, feels as raw and personal as listening to an old friend with his guitar sitting by a bonfire. Lyrically, A Soft Place to Land can be viewed as a concept album recounting the phases of a past relationship. The opener Games, begins the record with the moods of hope and excitement that are felt at the outset of every new romance. “We burned the bridges between our friends/ And we keep spinning ’round, these games,” Tony hums before the guitars burst into a charge – a perfect punctuation to his seething passion. Fall On My Knees, meanwhile, sees Tony playfully angry with his lover for her “lying tongue”. The album closes with the slow and somber All I Have Is Me, marking the end of the affair and our protagonist’s subsequent sorrow.