The Fretless. Bird’s Nest.

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Round about this time last year we were quite impressed by an album from a duo called Fiddle & Banjo. Their album, Tunes From The North, Songs From the South  was an impressive sepia toned investigation into old time music by the duo of Karrnnel Sawitsky (fiddle) and Daniel Koulack (banjo) and when they came to Celtic Connections in January of 2016 we described them as “ghosts from the past,” their renditions of traditional tunes at times chilling.

The Fretless is another Sawitsky project, a string quartet which again has its roots in traditional music and then adds a more formal discipline to the tunes in the manner of a classical quartet. Sawitsky plays fiddle and viola as does Trent Freeman (who also appeared at the Celtic Connections gig) and Ivonne Hernandez while Eric Wright adds cello. It’s a measure of the band’s excellence that over the past four years they have swept the boards of various Canadian music awards named as ensemble of the year and best instrumental group while their two previous albums have won Best Instrumental Album of their respective years from the Western Canadian Music Awards. Bird’s Nest looks set to follow in that tradition as the band continue to straddle the folk and classical worlds, the debut performance of the album taking place in Cologne’s Philharmonic Orchestra Hall in October.

It may seem a daunting prospect, an instrumental album of fiddles, viola and cello. However for folk followers there is a seam of traditional lures throughout the album with a definite Celtic air lingering here and there. Most of the tunes are originals but there are traditional tunes also with The Kylebrack Rambler an energetic closer to Freeman’s Jig Of The Blue Moon while a flighty Maids Of Castlebar is conjoined with Sawitsky’s Le Reel de Samuel. There’s toe tapping aplenty and even some jigs so it’s not the sort of polite string quartet you’ll hear while browsing in a quaint old bookshop. Indeed there’s a sharply dynamic quality to the album, the thrust of the fiddlers combined quite thrilling at times while the woody timbre of the cello is perfectly captured. Wonderfully textured it’s warm and engaging and it should thrill the socks off of anyone who is even slightly interested in folk fiddle playing. A bold, brave and ultimately satisfying adventure.

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Two Cow Garage. Brand New Flag. At The Helm Records

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Based in Columbus, Ohio, Two Cow Garage are commonly referred to as one of the hardest working bands in the States. Certainly their name crops up repeatedly on several lists Blabber’n’Smoke subscribes to and they have a fiercely devoted following over there; when their tour bus broke down a few years ago an unsolicited fan based fundraiser quickly had them back on the road again. Despite this they remain somewhat under the popular radar especially on this side of the pond, a shame really as they are one of the best proponents of that mash up of country, punk and melodic rock that was born from the No Depression movement of the nineties. In addition they are firmly on the side of the righteous. That is they sing about the human condition, injustice, the daily struggle against the powerful and it’s ironic that Brand New Flag is unleashed just as Americans (and others) shift uneasily awaiting the new order that’s just been given the keys to The White House.

Brand New Flag is a raw album. It blasts from the speakers for most of the time. Churning melodies and amped up guitars hammer through many of the songs at times with the urgency of a Springsteen fist clencher, the clincher being Continental Distance which even has a Roy Bittan like piano break. This Little Light is a noirish account of a mugging and not a million miles away from Drive By Truckers territory while History Now could become an anthem for the Occupy movement as could the title song where they rail against the establishment singing, “I don’t believe in anything”. In addition they plant their feet firmly on the side of diversity with the life line described in the words of Let The Boys Be Girls, a defiant and proud refutation of “fitting in” as they dismiss God, schooling and military service with the defiant cry of, “we don’t need old white rich men to tell us who we can kiss goodnight”.

It’s all stirring stuff but they do let off on the throttle on a few songs. The opening song Movies is a dry as dirt “alt-country” stumble with all four band members singing about their childhood dreams while A Lullaby Of Sorts is a marvellous dissection of teenage neurosis with the narrator alarmed by a gun bearing customer at a roadside stop and pondering on the obscenity of wearing an $800 leather jacket. There’s fear and loathing on the dirge like guitar squall of I Promise which is like an internal dialogue fuelled by self doubt and harried by schizophrenic like other voices. The tune itself eventually collapses into mayhem, a deranged horn section recalling the free form jazz of Albert Ayler.

An album then that is and is not easy to listen to. It’s invigorating. An alternative state of the nation address that seeks ways to survive against the oncoming tsunami of small mindedness.

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Will Varley. Kingsdown Sundown. Xtra Mile Recordings

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Will Varley is one of those “finger pointing” musicians singing the types of song that Dylan renounced around the time of My Back Pages. Of course, Dylan has pointed his finger at various injustices since those days and folk music has a powerful tradition of protest ranging from simple sloganeering to well-crafted lamentations on injustice and the human condition. On Kingsdown Sundown Varley certainly falls into the latter camp with the album a stark meditation on several woes, the environment, US politics and daily striving all featuring.

Varley’s vulnerable husk of a voice and his intricate guitar skills are the bare bones of the album with an occasional muffled percussive boom punctuating several of the songs. In the main acoustic but with electric guitar buried in the mix on Let Your Guard Down and then growling throughout We Want Our Planet Back, a strong environmental protest. Along with the opening song To Build A Wall there’s a strong sense that much of Varley’s ire is directed at the goings on in the US and although obviously recorded before this week’s election result listening to them is a reminder that the struggle, despite setbacks, must go on. To Build A Wall joins a long list of songs that allude to the possibility of a new Berlin like wall being built in the USA with Varley delicately reminding the listener of the consequences of such an action.  He’s more direct on the Dylan like Something Is Breaking which is like a clarion call from the sixties while When She Wakes, a dark puddle of a song with lyrics which weave urban squalor into a folk like lament has sparks of guitar which recall the likes of Bert Jansch.

Dipping into an almost surreal netherworld on Let Your Guard Down and waxing poetically on the wintry and bucolic February Snow Varley is an excellent exemplar for those who support the argument that lyrics can be literature as realised by Dylan’s recent prize. Varley rails against injustice throughout the album but he does so in a beguiling and ultimately disarming fashion.

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Uncle Lucius. The Light. Thirty Tigers Records

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From Austin Texas Uncle Lucius are a five piece band who have a busload of talent on board, various members writing and singing lead on their songs which are steeped in the South and feature inventive keyboards and sly guitar. Sound familiar? It’s tempting to compare them to The Band, especially when the horns kick in on the soulful organ push of The Age Of Reason, the second song here. It’s a comparison that can be deadly as it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get another collision of talent as existed in The Band but on their own terms Uncle Lucius deserve at least  to be considered along with further comparisons to the likes of The Allman’s and even Barefoot Jerry and Little Feat.

From the opening title song which moves from an acoustic strum into a full barrelled piano romp to the closing full tilt boogie of Someday Is A Far Cry the band roam through a series of thought provoking songs. At times the lyrics are positively existential as on Nothing To Save’s, “Reality’s a battle when fought in the mind, mind is a tool best used to measure time, time is a concept, a construct of man, man could very well be wrong again.” Heady stuff indeed but it’s delivered over a hypnotic and powerful swirl of Stax like balladeering and throughout the album the band manage this mix of swampy rock and questing lyrics.  For those who want to indulge in the words there’s a lyric sheet included which will provide hours of scrutinising but overall the band deliver a fine set of invigorating songs  that sway mightily, the cool melt of tom toms and swirling guitars on Flood Then Fade Away perhaps the highlight here.

The band are currently on tour in the UK and play in Glasgow on Sunday 6th November at The Hug & Pint.

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John Paul White. Beulah. Single Lock Records

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One half of the Grammy Award winning duo The Civil Wars, John Paul White returns to the fray two years after the shock ending of his musical partnership with Joy Williams. For a while he concentrated on his record label (Single Lock Records) producing the sublime Donnie Fritts album Oh My Goodness. Beulah doesn’t directly address the issue of the band’s split but it contains several songs described by White as ones he “tried to avoid but I realised the only way I was going to get rid of them was if I wrote them down,” the title refers to William Blake’s concept of the subconscious; the source of poetic inspiration and of dreams.

It’s an album that pokes into dark spaces, even on a creamy country love song such as I‘ve Been Over This Before (with harmonies by The Secret Sisters) there’s a tale of desertion and heartbreak. With simple acoustic based ballads and fuller arrangements that betray White’s love of Southern rock he alternately sounds angry and desolate, the opener Black Leaf a delicate recrimination with White’s acoustic picking to the fore backed by a sensitive keyboard and horn arrangement. It’s followed by the abrasive and swampy What’s So with White almost howling at times, pained by “the difference between what should be and what’s so.” White remains on this path for much of the album. There’s an almost Nick Drake like sound to The Once And Future Queen, apparently written for his daughter, while I Want To Make You Cry is simultaneously creepy and tender, the baroque folk backing adding to the sense of displacement here.

While songs such as I’ll Fight For You and The Martyr veer dangerously close to stereotypical “radio friendly angst rock” White can yank out a tremendous heartfelt apology on the lyrical folksy lament Hate The Way I Love You and he closes the album with another winner on the breathy close miked I’ll Get Even, a song whose lyrics are open to discussion.

John Paul White plays Manchester and London on the 7th and 8th November, details here

 

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Michael Rank. Red Hand. Louds Hymn Records

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A Blabber’n’Smoke favourite, Michael Rank continues his unfettered exploration into the hinterlands of bare boned  Americana on Red Hand, his sixth album in four years. Over the course of these albums his husk of a voice has drifted over music that has Appalachian roots but also recalls a grizzled alt country sound that goes back to The Band and The Stones’ occasional forays into country music while elements of The Grateful Dead, Neil Young and The Jacobites have been woven into the thread at times. The slow drizzle of guitars, plaintive fiddle and tentative mandolin with occasional licks of pedal steel that have characterised his latter work have also included an increasing use of a female vocal foil with Emily Frantz and Skylar Gudasz previously featured. His last album Horsehair found him singing with Heather McEntire (of Mount Moriah) and she returns here singing on all of the songs, the pair of them a wonderfully fractured duo, an alternative George and Tammy if you will.

In his press interviews for Red Hand Rank has spoken of his introduction to music back in the seventies and his liking of “soft rock” troubadours such as Cat Stevens, the PR blurb saying it’s like “70’s radio filtered through a Civil War fiddle.” However there’s no Moonshadow type meanderings here as Rank continues to dig into the sinews of deep dark and weird Americana, a perfect embodiment of what Greil Marcus was hinting at when he described The Basement Tapes as “palavers with a community of ghosts.” Rank and McEntire sing like a pair of revenants, wraiths gathered around a microphone whispering their covenants, the band wrapped around them like a Kudzu plant.

That Civil War fiddle opens and closes the first song River Road, a plaintive intro to a gutsy song that does indeed recall the more muscular Cat Stevens of Can’t Keep It In as Rank’s usual skeletal backing is adorned by the Wurlitzer playing of James Wallace adding a bit of oomph. There’s more of that oomph on the horn backed 1964, a swampy ooze of a song but the following Jacob, a magnificent swoon of a song with creamy pedal steel stamps Rank’s standing as a major player. It’s a perfect song suffused with emotion, the vocals stained with an authenticity that beggar’s belief as they strain to connect generations. There’s a heartbreak woven into the fabric of the album with Milkweed a dreamlike recollection of carnal love lost set to a mournful, almost Celtic, lament while The Lord He Take Away is a powerful and intricate assemblage of sawed fiddle and plaintive pedal steel supporting a tale that could be straight from the likes of Cold Mountain. Forever And A Day is a devastating love song as Rank and McEntire sing in unison of their hopes for a wedding day but the music and their delivery seems to suggest that it’s a forlorn hope. Again this song just weeps with emotion, Rank a puppet master of emotive string pulling  delivering slivers of painful beauty.

Red Hand confirms Blabber’n’Smoke’s belief that Michael Rank is an artist of the first degree. Six albums in with all of them somewhat magnificent he deserves to be heard far and wide. Currently he doesn’t travel out with North Carolina but videos of his performances locally show that he can carry off his superb concoction of stained and strained melancholic country laments with ease. Have a listen and then buy the albums, you won’t regret it.

And here’s an older piece from Rank, one that we think shows off his particular talent.

 

Dean Owens. Into The Sea: Deluxe Edition. Drumfire Record

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2015’s Into The Sea is perhaps the most perfectly realised of Dean Owens‘ albums rivalling Whisky Hearts for fans affections despite the presence of his two most iconic songs (Man From Leith and Raining In Glasgow) on the latter. Both albums were recorded in Nashville and both feature Owens’ long time compadre Will Kimbrough but Into The Sea, recorded seven years after Whisky Hearts is a better distillation of Owen’s Celtic Americana, the players and producer Neilson Hubbard at the top of their game. It’s also a more passionate album. At the time of recording Owens and his family were coming to terms with the death of his sister Julie from cancer, the album is dedicated to her. When I spoke to him about the recording of the album he said,” It was a difficult time for me when I was making the album for various reasons and a lot of that I poured into the song writing… It’s quite an emotional record… it was a time in my life when a lot of unexpected things, tragic things were happening and as a songwriter that comes through in your craft. “The song Evergreen in particular addresses his loss, it’s tender, affectionate and moving, happy memories recalled despite the sad reality. Owens sings powerfully here with some magnificent support vocally from Kim Richey.

Owens addressed other losses on Virginia Street, Kids (1979), The Only One and Sally’s Song (I Dreamed Of Michael Marra) but it would be false to describe the album as a series of eulogies. The opening song, Dora, a musical genealogy, is quite stirring and the glorious sweep of Up On The Hill is a celebration of open spaces and the opportunity they offer to reflect on and give thanks for the good things in life (along with an opportunity to hear some wicked slide guitar from Kimbrough). 18 months on from its release Into The Sea remains an album that stirs and invigorates and we can personally vouch for the power of these songs when delivered live with Dora and Up On The Hill especially moving. This Deluxe Edition adds four more songs to the album including one from the original sessions, Alison Wonderland, a song which fits snugly into the overall feel of the album with Kimbrough’s guitars keening throughout as Owens disappears down a rabbit hole of yearning. There’s Cotton Snow, previously only available digitally, Owens’ setting of a civil war battlefield which is wonderfully realised along with two songs  recorded at the time of the Into The Sea sessions which didn’t make it into the studio process, here delivered as solo acoustic guitar and voice performances. Again one refers to shows we’ve seen over the past year, Owens with his band a mighty prospect but on his own he can still deliver and here Forgotten Shadows is a fine mix of memories and regret, faded pictures pored over with Owens in fine honeyed voice. Shadows appear again in his rendition of Warren Zevon’s Keep Me In Your Heart, again it’s delivered perfectly and it dovetails perfectly with the overall sense of love, loss, memory and family.

If you haven’t got the original album then this release is a no brainer. For those who have it already then I suppose it depends on the degree of fandom but we can guarantee that if you do plunge then you won’t be disappointed. Having reviewed the original album here and Cotton Snow here it’s been quite invigorating to having to listen more carefully to the album for the purposes of this review and the bonus songs are now irretrievably entwined within the whole and it is an album that deserves to be on the shelves of any discerning music lover. Meanwhile Dean, with and without the Whisky Hearts continues to roam around the country with several dates coming up including full band shows in Glasgow, Stirling and Edinburgh, all dates here.

The Deluxe Edition is available here and there’s an opportunity to support Dean in his next endeavour, Southern Wind,  another collaboration with Nielson Hubbard here.

Finally Dean and his band The Whisky Hearts appeared on Radio Scotland’s Quay Sessions last week and you can see them in their full glory here

 

Tommy Hale. Magnificent Bastard. Holiday Disaster Records.

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Apparently a well known figure on the Dallas roots rock scene Tommy Hale was a member of cult rockers Swank Deluxe before breaking off to record two solo albums in 2003 and 2008. Blabber’n’Smoke was oblivious to the man until Magnificent Bastard, his third album, a mere eight years after his second effort, popped through the post but a little delving allowed that more discerning folk had welcomed him to the UK a decade or so ago. Chief among those folk were Simon George Moore and John O’Sullivan of UK band The Snakes (see here) and this pair appear on Magnificent Bastard which was recorded in rural Wiltshire, a world away from Dallas.

The album opens with a killer slice of punk infused swagger on the title track. That’s punk as purveyed by NY types such as Mink Deville and Jim Carroll as Hale sneers arrogantly, the guitars switch and flash while a Farfisa organ parps away. An excellent start but somewhat misleading as there’s only one other song here that rocks, the burnished chrome glide of Backburner, this time with Blue Oyster Cult coursing through its rifftastic veins. While it’s a bit of a head banger it does feature some bonkers Theremin throughout although the horn section that muscles its way in towards the end is a bit top heavy.

Perhaps exhausted by this effort Hale reins it in for the rest of the album proving himself to be a dab hand at wistful pop infused melodies,  the recollection of school proms on Homecoming Mum and the rippling Simple Song fine examples but his best effort is on Can I Lay Down Next To You. Here there’s a soulful touch (reinforced by the organ and percussion recalling Otis’ try A Little Tenderness) allied to some sweet pedal steel on a song that recalls Wilco at times. There’s another comparison to be made when the gospel country strains of Just How She Died start up taking us into the land of Gram Parsons. Almost a parody (an affectionate one) of country duets with Madison King the female foil,  it’s stuffed with black humour  – “It’s all a bit hazy now but I remember a few things, about how she kicked my dog and flushed my wedding ring” and “I can’t remember how she died or if she’s just dead to me.”  They capture perfectly Parson’s wide eyed cosmic cowboy persona, Hale’s delivery mimicking Parson’s mixture of yearning and insouciance.

There’s more dark humour (although no laughs) on the brooding Mexican tale of Sonrisas y Sunshine wherein a young punk hopes to be the star of the next narco-corrida hit by killing his girlfriend. With spooky Theremin adding a fifties sci-fi touch to the coiled menace of twanged guitar and lone Tijuana trumpet it’s a killer song. The centrepiece of the album however is deadly serious. Save Me (The Ballad of Odell Barnes Jr.)  is informed by the story of a classmate and friend of Hale’s who was convicted of a murder and executed. Opening with a brief encapsulation of the crime from Barnes’ viewpoint delivered over a sole piano it then swells into an epic ballad with slide guitar recalling Lynyrd Skynyrd as Hale imagines the condemned man’s plea to be saved. While it’s not a song that can be considered a condemnation of the death penalty it does ask one to consider the condemned. As Hale says, “I don’t know if he did the murder or not but I want people to know what it is and to know the story.” Whatever his intentions it does pack an emotional punch.

Hale closes the album with a cover of Bill Withers’ Hope She’ll be Happier, another powerful punch that features Hale and a corrosive guitar that sears, his voice calling into a wilderness, an eternity of loneliness.

So, a magpie of sorts, an album that picks up shiny forebears but overall it’s quietly magnificent.  Hale, the titular Magnificent Bastard, keen eyed and whip smart, tender and tough. The picture on the back of the album is a fine joke and reminded us of Geoff Dyer’s story White Sands in his latest book of the same name.

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Freakwater. Scheherazade. Bloodshot Records

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This album’s been out for a while now but with Freakwater playing in Glasgow tonight it deserves a mention. Essentially a vehicle for Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin’s love of ancient sounding Appalachian and American Gothic sounds Freakwater set the standard for a bare boned and raw Americana sound in the nineties, Old Paint being a particularly good example. Scheherazade is their first album in ten years and while the vocal pairing of Bean and Irwin remains the focal point the album is their fullest yet in terms of arrangements with their long term bass player, David Wayne Gay, augmented by a host of Kentucky musicians and pertinently Warren Ellis, presumably happy to be ensconced in the badlands yet again.

From start to end the album is a glorious collection of blood soaked tales and grim narratives. The opening What the People Want recounts a violent and bloody encounter, a woman “split from stern to stern” and thrown down a well as Ellis’ spooky fiddle scrapes away. The lullaby Rock A Bye Baby is transformed into a vertiginous nightmare replete with squalling guitar battling an unhinged banjo on Down Will Come Baby. There’s a crepuscular element in the sly guitar lines on Falls Of Sleep, a song that foreshadows an execution while The Asp and The Albatross derives from Coleridge and Shakespeare as the band deliver a powerful folk rock sound which recalls the singular oddity that was Farewell Aldebaran, Judy Henske and Jerry Yester’s psychedelic folk masterpiece.

Bolshevik and Bollweevil and Take Me With You are more akin to the Freakwater of old, the voices prominent over a restrained backing but sitting in perfect harmony with their sibling songs here. The album as a whole is a fine addition to what was already a fine canon.

Freakwater are playing Broadcast, Glasgow tonight. On the strength of this album it looks like a night to remember.

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Chip Taylor. Little Brothers. Train Wreck Records

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Where do you start with Chip Taylor? Well. First off he’s one of the headliners at this week’s Glasgow Americana Festival playing Friday at the Classic Grand. Simple, go get a ticket. After that it gets weird. On one level Taylor is connected, star wise, Hollywood firmament stuff, his brother is Jon Voight, his niece Angelina Jolie, he should be larging it up in Malibu. More pertinently he’s the guy who wrote the sublime Angel Of The Morning and the classic garage punk perennial Wild Thing, yes, that Wild Thing, covered by The Troggs, Hendrix et al. In fact, he was a regular one man Brill Building back in the sixties and early seventies churning out hit songs for numerous artists. Then he packed it all in and became a professional gambler (told you this was weird) only returning to music in the late nineties. A series of albums recorded with Carrie Rodriguez were classic dusty Americana while Chip himself rolled out his discs including the immense triple CD The Little Prayers Trilogy. Across these discs Taylor delivers his songs and spoken words like a sage Walter Brennan addressing you by a campfire. Words of wisdom suffused with a humanity which is occasionally tempered by an anger at the ways of the world. The albums are a comfort and a delight and this latest release is no different.

Addressing the plight of refugees, documenting a dream about his brothers (Jon and volcanologist Barry) and offering up a self-help mantra of sorts Taylor softly spins his wisdom across the album. The songs are laid back, guitarist John Platania (renowned for his days in Van Morrison’s Caledonia Soul Orchestra) and keyboardist Goran Grini delicately supporting the slim melodies. The album opens with Taylor delivering a narrative about his brother Barry and his granddaughter driving to a golf tournament for kids then driving back. A simple tale but one invested with a sense of dignity and pride as Taylor’s homespun voice delivers the story before coming to the conclusion that, “we all need some great rides home.” Similarly a dream about Taylor and his brothers in a taxi spins into a meditation on their relationship, their shared Yonkers background and their occasional differences on the title song. As Time Goes By, dedicated to his wife, is an affecting love song that acknowledges the passage of time and the deepening bond that develops, a wonderful song.

Over the course of his albums Taylor has displayed his wry sense of humour and also his deep love of humanity and both are well displayed here. Enlighten Yourself has Taylor delivering a lecture of sorts with an occasional mantra (which is reprised at the end of the album). Sounding almost like Mr. Magoo as he stumbles through his guide to becoming enlightened he highlights the absurdity of many gurus while pointing out the simplicity of just being yourself and enjoying the simple things in life.  Refugee Children is prefaced by Taylor setting the scene as he recalls a tour in Sweden and coming across a group of refugees. The song again is simple, painting a picture of the children fishing in a brook but Taylor makes his point midway as he reads from the Human Rights Convention relating to the status of refugees. Simple but effective.

As we mentioned up above Chip Taylor is appearing this Friday as part of the Glasgow Americana festival. It’s his first appearance in Glasgow for 15 years and a rare opportunity to see one of the legends of American music.

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Unfortunately none of the videos from the album are available here in the UK but just this week Taylor released this new song he has recorded with Carrie Rodriguez.