by Peter Hum
Excerpt: Rathbun’s CD is called Affairs of State, and his liner notes are explicit: The disc’s nine originals are “abstractions” based on Rathbun’s last six years living in the United States, during which he clearly came to disagree sharply with the people running the country. The songs range from Fiasco, inspired by the Iraq war, which Rathbun calls “the greatest failure in the history of U.S. foreign policy,” to 5th Anniversary, a slow, rumbling, plaintive song written five years to the day after Sept. 11, 2001, to a splashy waltz, Folly (of the Future Fallen), about which Rathbun writes: “History is not going to be kind to this bunch. These elected and selected folk will be remembered as misguided and wrong-headed.”