Lorenzo Gabanizza and Jeff Christie Drop New Single

A bit of twang here, a touch of swing there – the essential ingredients of a stock Americana offering are present in the new single “I Guess I Am the Only One,” and yet there’s nothing predictable about the performance that Lorenzo Gabanizza and Jeff Christie have to present in their new single.

Gabanizza leads this collaboration with a gentle touch, but there’s really not a moment of this song that lacks urgency to some extent – whether it be the strings or the nudge of the percussion, we’re made to feel the physicality of the music in some capacity or another regardless of how loud our stereo is. If you’re listening to “I Guess I Am the Only One” through a good set of speakers, you’re going to notice the depth of audio that’s present in the production, but what’s more is that even without a great sound system, the passion that Christie and his counterpart are putting into this material is something to marvel at all by itself. This has been a good year for country offshoots, and to me, we’ve got another gem of a song here.

The aesthetical make-up of this piece isn’t as steeped in the Nashville identity so much as it is the traditional roots rock of forty years ago when heartland bands were all the rage, but I’m quite hesitant to call “I Guess I Am the Only One” a straight throwback. There’s too much of an intimate quality to the words that are being sung for this to be an outright homage, and it’s clear from the get-go that Gabanizza wants us to focus on all of the detail on the backside of the mix in addition to what’s going on up front.

Texture is as real an agent of expression as any of the words would be, and rather than using the board to create some embellishment in the melodies, this mix is made to frame the music exclusively. There are no shortcuts featured in this recording – we’ve got pure rhythm and harmony, presented by the likes of two genuinely talented players.

Putting quality above all else should be the standard in all music, let alone something as crucial to the culture of the American story as country is, but because it’s not, a piece of this nature is even more impressive than it would have been to start with. Lorenzo Gabanizza and Jeff Christie aren’t rushing through this project or simply recycling an idea that has been played out a hundred and one times before by just as many artists; every part of “I Guess I Am the Only One” reads as original, albeit a work that is born of great respect for the iconic works in the country music genre.

To be your own artist is much harder than what anyone in this industry will tell you at the start of your career, but for everything these two are trying to do in this single, I think they’re going to be recognized as true professionals.

Michael Rand