Stream: D.A. Wallach, ‘Time Machine’

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D.A. Wallach
D.A. Wallach

There’s ain’t enough like D.A. Wallach. And we’re just talking about the singer-songwriter’s new album “Time Machine,” not the 30-year-old renaissance man’s careers as an investor, technology consultant and essayist. “Time Machine,” out last week on Harvest Records, is the long-awaited follow-up to “Glowing” and “Farm,” the two singles he released in late 2013. It’s a classic pop record, which is to say it might be the greatest un-hip album of 2015.

And in a world that once settled for Joels and now settles for Jessos, this piano man’s “Time Machine” is strikingly ambitious — fully (but not over-) orchestrated, thanks to arrangements by composer David Campbell (Beck’s father); collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Diane Warren and James Fauntleroy; and a cadre of backing musicians including Nathan East, Jim Keltner, Dave Palmer and Randy Kerber. But Wallach did not just dial up such connections on his mobile device. In his early years at Harvard, Williams, Kanye West and Jermaine Dupri all vied for his talents after hearing his demos, and the duo Wallach formed with Maxwell Drummey, Chester French, ended up releasing two full-lengths.

“Time Machine” has already earned a couple of (well-deserved) comparisons to “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and Elton John is not the only ’70s luminary to come to mind over the album’s 11 tracks. At various moments, you spot the wry sophistication of Randy Newman, the blissfulness of Jeff Lynne, the baroque melancholy of Harry Nilsson, the fragile naiveté of early-twentysomething Todd Rundgren’s ballads. There’s a craft to all of it that doesn’t subvert the fact that “Time Machine” abides good ol’ open-hearted pop themes. If only we’d had some of these songs for those very first cassette mixtapes.

||| Stream: “Time Machine”