Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is time that we admitted it to ourselves and the wider world, that everyone has only the vaguest understanding of what is happening, that the vast majority are guessing what comes next, and that it takes a hardy and unblinkered soul to assess any truth in such a way that their art speaks volumes and eases its way into the soul of anyone whose mind is not for rent, but who can see through the bleak misgivings of unfolding events and offer in return a sense of awareness and hope through persuasive means.

“What key is my memory in?”, muses John Chi on his impressive new, and hopeful album untouched by adversity, River Of Marigolds takes hold of the listener’s appreciation. It is a memory that like every one of us in the last decade and beyond has been blighted, forced to recognise, that all that we are is at times just a backdrop to the bigger picture, that we are surrounded by the same adversity we try to avoid, the increasing awareness of disasters, of war, of pestilence, of enforced isolation…and yet the bud of hope remains, that in the darkest moment we can still reach out and find a petal of security, that the healing property of the marigold is at hand.

Embraced by a collection of players on his new recording, including Jeremy Hoenig, John-Paul McLean, Jordan Feinstein, Mingo Lewis Jr., and Ian ‘Inxk’ Herman, John Chi lays down a kind of Yizkor, a memory wall of music that understands the struggle of all and offers hope in the form of a strengthened will and desire to change the narrative of the word, and whilst the plague of humanity never ceases to continue with wars and misunderstandings, of the cycle of retribution and excess, there is hope, there is always the chance of healing to be found.

Across tracks such as the opener Cold Clear Winter, Got To Give The Devil His Due, Up In Flames, Sweet Surrender, and the album title track of River Of Marigolds, John Chi presses home with beautiful urgency the need to see through the damage done and create a new way of thinking; we might not be able to alter the narrative, perhaps the world has tipped too far for that, but we can acknowledge it, we can repent, flog ourselves in some sort of symbolic gesture of repentance, or more openly and less ritualistic, we can just admit that we don’t have the answers, but we can love with all our might.

An album that captures hope in such a way that it is majestic, it is the freedom of an offering to which the medicinal power of healing is expounded upon, and even in our darkest moments we can still see the light.

Ian D. Hall