Press Reviews:

The Fallen Acrobat is a beautiful album of bedroom folk songs, closer in style and spirit to Christian Kiefer than any artist on Silber's regular roaster. A very strong debut, it features Jamie Barnes multitracking vocals, acoustic guitar, toy piano, glockenspiel, flute, and field recordings in his bedroom. The instrumentation is charmingly naive, his lyrics generally meaningful and touching, and his melodies very catchy. Failed relationships provide the main topic for Barnes' lyrics, but he also touches more socially conscious subjects "Peaceful Protest," "Ambition is Poisonous" and dreamier ruminations "A Ceiling Lit with Stars." "Burning Leaves" stands out as the strongest song, beautifully arranged, moving, and filled with bits of surprising wisdom for a kid of that age. Other highlights include "Wait for Her" (a typical love triangle, but the harsher words are sung on such a delicate tone), a rendition of Rivulets' "Anyway..." (the closest to a pop song Barnes get on this set), and "Unhappy," where the singer admits "I don¹t know much about dating / or interior decorating," which might explain the main topic of the album after all. Barnes' voice is warm, understated but precise, soft-spoken, simply perfect for this particular kind of intimate folk songs. The Fallen Acrobat compensates for one hundred lousy bedroom albums you may have heard. And to think that it is only Barnes¹ first record fills the heart with hope.
~ François Couture, All Music Guide

The debut release by this Louisville, KY, musician is cut from a very similar grain as the recent works by Jon DeRosa and Nathan Amundson, though with the added twist of a very clever sense of humor. Barnes doesn't take himself too seriously on these songs even though they are of the most intimate sort, recorded over a year in his bedroom like some indie-folk Moby. He does wear his influences a bit too proudly on his sleeve, though, even covering "Anyway..." by Rivulets and thanking the obvious objects of comparison in the liner notes. I'll forgive that any day, though, when the work is this full of promise and yet brilliantly quirky all in the same moment. Barnes plays all the instruments on Acrobat, which basically amounts to guitar and minimal percussion, but the simplicity of this music and his vocal presence make it seem like so much more. The title track is sickeningly sweet but with a morbid edge, as the narrator falls for a girl like an acrobat who plummets from the wire. Barnes sings about her picking up his limbs and putting them back in their sockets before the vultures come and it's still the sweetest song about love I've heard this year. The songs run the gamut of emotions and situations, from swerving into oncoming traffic on "Games We Play on Road Trips" to unrequited love that turns to murder on "wait For Her" (incidentally, any folk song that actually uses the word "shiv" soars to the top of my list instantly). Barnes is not necessarily an innovator, but his debut album is accomplished nonetheless; not too shabby for a 21-year-old college dropout.
~ Rob Devlin, Brainwashed

Jamie Barnes is a singer-songwriter, but not an ordinary one. His songs find the balance between "pretty" and "raw" that similar musicians strive for but miss. The texture of Barnes' debut album The Fallen Acrobat is soft and lovely, built with acoustic guitar and piano. It offers that pastoral feeling that makes you imagine you're lying in a field somewhere, or perhaps walking alone in the woods. The lyrics, however, don't present some idyllic dreamland, but are filled with the complex emotions of real people. They're hopeful but acknowledge fears, mistakes, disasters. They're complicated, whether he's singing a love letter (the title track asks an intended lover to pick up his limbs before the vultures get them in case of an accident) or singing about the growth and decay that accompanies the passing of years ("Burning Leaves"). Barnes' music brings to mind folk-pop musicians of the past (Nick Drake emerges in some of the album's prettiest moments, like the dreamy "Ambition Is Poisonous") while sounding very of today and personal (in that way it often reminds me of James William Hindle's two albums)...but there's also an endearing do-it-yourself, kitchen-sink quality to the recording which truly amplifies the intimacy of the songs. The Fallen Acrobat is like listening to someone sing you his secrets, but in the friendliest of tones.
~ Dave Heaton, Erasing Clouds

Jamie Barnes debut album is very understated when compared to everything else that is on the Silber media label. Not to say that it is a bad album at all, just very different. Very melodious song structures and a made at home feel to it. It’s imbued with really emotional lyrics. This reminds me very much of a band called 301 that I received with much the same trepidation as I did this one. I didn't expect to like this album upon first seeing the album cover and even less when I read the track listings, but this album totally won me over. It's a very great bit of story writing. Track 4, "For Centuries" is gorgeous, as is track number 9, "Unhappy." I now have dreams of happy little marching snowmen from the back cover creeping into my existence.
~ Azrael Racek, Gothic Beauty Magazine

Silber Records has an excellent track record of releasing quality music from lesser known, but generally more talented artists whom the major record labels generally ignore. Their diverse roster included among its artists the likes of Aarktica, Clang Quartet, and Remora. Musician Jamie Barnes makes his debut on their label with The Fallen Acrobat.
The Fallen Acrobat is a decidedly low-key debut for Jamie Barnes. A low-fidelity recording, Barnes recorded the album entirely in his own bedroom within the space of a year and wrote 11 of its 12 songs. Though some might misinterpret the highly personal way in which The Fallen Acrobat was created as self-indulgence, Barnes acquits himself nicely by way of some really poignant songwriting. Also, self-indulgence is one of the fringe benefits of being signed to an independent label, as Barnes is.
The Fallen Acrobat is a predominantly acoustic collection of laid-back folk-pop in the vein of Gordon Lightfoot and the late Harry Nilsson, circa the late '60s and early '70s. Combining elaborate songwriting with a restrained and conversational singing style, Barnes creates an emotionally affective but musically redundant album.
Barnes exceptional songwriting skills are the album's main attraction. His delineating use of metaphor is most enticing. The title track, for instance, likens the experience of falling madly in love to the helplessness an acrobat experiences falling from a trapeze. Another song, "Burning Leaves" likens coming of age and mortality to decomposing like burning leaves.
Songs like "Games We Play on Road Trips" and "For Centuries" seem more like ephemeral meditations on the present. "Games We Play on Road Trips", for instance, vividly describes all the passing images and physical sensations associated with those images through the eyes of Barnes on a road trip, with little to no reference to anything symbolic.
Jamie Barnes's proclivity toward subtlety permeates the album, both vocally and musically. His understated vocal delivery seemingly imbues all 12 of the songs on The Fallen Acrobat with a detached, almost lethargic tone. More, the musical discretion exercised by Barnes on the largely acoustic recording tends to unintentionally lend a sound-alike redundancy to the album. By incorporating various musical novelties such as the xylophone, glockenspiel, and toy piano, Barnes somewhat offsets these issues.
The Fallen Acrobat is more fully balanced by its more diverse tracks like "Anyway", "Unhappy", and "Peaceful Protest". "Anyway" and "Unhappy" are augmented by the presence of faint percussive sounds in their respective backgrounds. "Peaceful Protest", undoubtedly the album's most colorful track, includes tambourine and flute, giving the song a slightly autumnal-Celtic feel. Another track, "Ambition is Poisonous" uses German voice samples in the background.
All things considered, The Fallen Acrobat is a cathartic, if not necessarily pleasant listen. Though, the discretely acoustic feel of the album (and this can't be stressed enough) at times makes the listening experience somewhat humdrum, Barnes perfects an emotionally enriching listening experience through his eloquent songwriting. Indeed, Barnes not only captures the intimacy of his home surroundings but creates an album of low-key pop confections sure to inspire perseverance in the face of failed and wasted dreams. Indeed, Jamie Barnes' The Fallen Acrobat challenges the listener to look inward and not be captivated by his or her own deep regrets. The Fallen Acrobat is a worthy debut indeed.
~ Mervin W. Malone Jr., PopMatters