Trent Miller. Burnt Offerings. Bucketfull of Brains Records

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It’s funny how you think you have your finger on the pulse when it comes to what’s happening in your end of the music scene and then something comes in with a great pedigree but it’s news to you. So it was when this album from Trent Miller, his third it appears, popped through the post and floored us. Imagine if you will an artist who has the romantic lyricism of Gene Clark, the LA voodoo of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the retrospective roots appreciation of Richard Hawley. Picture a young Italian musician feverishly devouring tales and music of far away heroes as he scraps around for a living before eventually coming to London where he spends several more years scrapping around before some discerning folk lend an ear.

That’s essentially the story of Trent Miller. From Turin, he couldn’t fill a phone box in his native land and it was only after several years of itinerant jobbing in London that he was able to release a home recorded album, Cerebus, which led to his signing by Bucketfull of Brains who fitted him up with a band and released Welcome To Inferno Valley in 2012 leading to critical acclaim. A raw boned collection of country tinged folk, Welcome To Inferno Valley had Miller’s sinewy voice set over a primarily acoustic band setting. Burnt Offerings continues in this vein for the most part but his voice sounds more assured while the music is less rustic and more arranged with a greater emphasis on electric guitar and pedal steel.

Miller has an affinity with Gene Clark and the former Byrd’s spirit casts deep shadows on this album. Songs such as the title track and Pictures From A Different World have the literacy of Clarks’s song poems while the musicians hark back to the dappled sunlight picking of his late sixties forays into folk rock. Your Black Heart harks back to the sumptuous arrangements of Clark’s spell with the Gosdin Brothers while Sands Of Time sounds like a lost nugget from ’65. If this were all then one could dismiss the album as simply a (very fine) simulacrum of one of Miller’s heroes but he soaked up more than Clark in his dog days and he amalgamates his influences well here. Burnt Offerings opens the album with a loping rhythm and spectral guitar swoons that recall Lee Hazlewood as Miller sings of cathedrals in the desert. It’s hypnotic and beguiling. Lupita Dream sinks deeper into this dreamscape, lush and intoxicating it sounds like Jeffrey Lee Pierce wandering, stoned and immaculate as the guitars slide ecstatically by. The harmonica on Hearts On A Wire grounds the dream bringing it back to a back porch kitchen sink drama but before the listener has time to wallow in the comfort of the singer’s despair All These Violent Years slams into view. A metaphysical take on life and love with driving guitars, thumping drums and soaring vocals it’s somewhat of a tour de force leaving the listener exhausted afterwards. Sorrow Knows Better recalls another of Miller’s favourites, Guy Kyser of Thin White Rope with a sludgier sound and piercing guitars he almost steers into a piratical heavy metal shanty. Finally Miller dips a toe into the current guitar based psychedelic smorgasbord as epitomised by Israel Nash Gripka on On The Stone Beach which has the mystical Clark vibe and some very sweet fat guitar shining throughout the song.

Miller might be a product of his influences but the whole is better than the parts. It’s an album that will thrill those aware of the antecedents and beguile those who aren’t. The album is released on 14th April, you can order it here

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Blabber’n’Smoke’s Top Ten for 2013

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I succumbed to the idea of a top ten for the first time last year and if nothing else it’s been useful looking back at it over the past few days and comparing it to the list below. Was it a good year for music? I don’t know. Has there ever been a bad year? All I can say is that I’ve enjoyed listening to music this year as much as the last one and the year before that and so on. Many of last year’s list still get regular plays here so at least I liked them and the number one, John Murry’s Graceless Age has had a second wind with its eventual release Stateside. It may seem odd to have an artist with two entries in the list but both albums by Michael Rank & Stag are simply superb examples of what Blabber’n’Smoke would define as Americana; rooted in the country with a frontier outlook and a fierce regard for the common folk. And a happy coincidence to have two works from Howe Gelb mentioned also as he continues to plow his singular field. Both albums have striking images of Gelb threatening to turn him into an Americana icon, part Mt. Rushmore, part Dorothea Lange, for Blabber’n’Smoke, he’s a hero. Anyway, here’s what rocked our boat over the past twelve months.

1. Doc Feldman & the LD50. Sundowning At The Station. This Is American Music

Soiled songs and dusty ballads sounding like a wounded Crazy Horse. A triumph for label of the year, This Is American Music.

And here’s the man himself

2. Michael Rank and Stag. Mermaids. Louds Hymn

Wracked and raw country folk and rock from North Carolina’s Michael Rank. In the space of two years he’s delivered three albums (one a double disc set) that in a fit of hyperbole we said it sounded as if Keef had left the Stones in ’69, joined The Band and recorded with Neil Young frying honeyslides in the kitchen. At the very least it comes close.

3. Israel Nash Gripka. Israel Nash’s Rain Plains. Loose Music

Guitars weave and wander with a ferocity and lyricism that defies description and he repeats this throughout the album and there’s a moment in the title song where the guitars fizz and burn just like the best firework you’ve ever seen.

4. Cam Penner. To Build A Fire. Independent

“Ukuleles, guitars, banjos were strummed. Floors were stomped. Kick drums were kicked. Feet stumbled. Thighs, knees, hands, slapped, clapped. Voices strained and bent. Fingers gripped, grabbed, picked. Arms and hands flung. Skin wrapped tight strained and stretched. Body and sound thrown against wood and metal.”

5. Michael Rank & Stag. In The Weeds. Louds Hymn
No apologies for the second appearance from this tall, stick thin North Carolina rock’n’roll ragamuffin. The sonic slurry he conjures up is nothing less than mesmerising.

6. Sam Baker. Say Grace. Independent

Baker’s wounded heart goes from strength to strength

7. Diana Jones. Museum of Appalachia Recordings. Proper Records.

She’s not well known but whenever we mention her there’s a flurry of activity from folk who recognise Jones’ ability to sound as old as the hills and bang up to date, the thinking man’s Gillian Welch?

8. Birds of Chicago. Birds of Chicago. Independent.

JT Nero makes an honest woman of Allison Russell as they formally pair up for a laid back celebration of harmony singing and some Tupelo honey.

9. Dead Flowers. Midnight at The Wheel Club Hee Haw Records

Dark and deep, vocally and lyrically, a trip through North America and the soul.

Dead Flowers – The Beach from deadflowers on Vimeo.

10. Wynntown Marshals. The Long Haul. Blue Rose.

Local heroes, The Wynntown Marshals survived some turbulent years with band members coming and going. With new crew on board they came up trumps with a bigger, more layered sound and another fine songwriter in the shape of bassist Murdoch McLeod who penned the amazing Tide. Topping off a great year for them the band were snapped up by the very discerning blue Rose label.

Honorable mentions

Howe Gelb. The Coincidentalist
Howe Gelb. Dust Bowl
Mark Collie & his Reckless Companions. Alive At Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.
J. R. Shore. State Theatre.
The Coals A Happy Animal
Benjamin Folke Thomas. Too Close to Here
Slaid Cleaves. Still Fighting The War
Thriftstore Masterpiece presents Lee Hazlewood’s Trouble Is A Lonely Town.
The Quiet American. Wild Bill Jones
Amanda Pearcy. Royal street
Heidi Talbot. Angels Without Wings
Jim Dead I’m Not Lost
Rachel Brooke. A Killer’s dream
Great Peacock E. P.

Glasgow Americana- Israel Nash Gripka/My Darling Clementine

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No sooner than No Mean City ends another Americana themed festival hits Glasgow in the shape of Glasgow Americana hosted by Fallen Angels promoter Kevin Morris. Packed into a week of mouth-watering gigs in a variety of venues this years event sees stellar names such as Israel Gripka Nash, Slaid Cleaves, Laura Cantrell, Darden Smith, Madison Violet, Devon Sproule, My Darling Clementine, Anna Coogan and Dean Owens appearing. The week culminates in a tribute evening celebrating Gram Parsons featuring James Grant, Roddy Hart, Madison Violet, Ben Glover, My Darling Clementine, The Parsonage Choir and The City Sinners.
The Parsons tribute night and the Cleaves show are already sold out so folk intending to attend any of the other shows would be well advised to head over to the website and book their seats now. In the meantime we thought we’d delve into some of the wares likely to be on sale at the various gigs.
We’ve already mentioned the excellent new release from Slaid Cleaves and the latest live offering from Madison Violet while Anna Coogan has long been one of our favourites. However it’s with a degree of serendipity that albums from My Darling Clementine and Israel Nash Gripka have recently dropped into the Blabber’n’Smoke mailbox with both of them boding well for their Glasgow appearances.

My Darling Clementine are husband and wife team, Michael Weston King (ex The Good Sons) and Lou Dalgleish and their album, The Reconciliation? is a celebration of classic country male/female duets with some southern soul thrown in for good measure. It’s not a pun to say that this effort appears to be a labour of love as everything about it appears to have been well crafted from the song writing and magnificent playing to the superb packaging that has a faded and scuffed vinyl album patina looking like the sort of platter one might find in a charity store bin. King and Dalgliesh spar and croon as well as any of their forebears including Tammy and George, Dolly and Porter and even Emmylou and Gram while the music flits from honky tonk to tear jerking Nashville rhinestone ballads and soul farm grit with backing from Richard Hawley’s band for the most part. There are no happy songs here although the final cut Miracle Mabel tells of the birth of King and Dalgleish’s daughter with a fine tenderness. The majority of the songs are about breakups and divorce (Unhappily Ever After featuring a guest vocal from Kinky Friedman standing out) and while there’s a barb in some of the lyrics where they strip away the showbiz tears and schmaltz and reveal the reality of domestic abuse and alcoholism ( No Matter What Tammy Said (I Won’t Stand By Him) for example stands Wynette’s melodrama on its head as Dalgleish abandons her man) listening to the album one could almost be sitting in a flea bit bar with a great jukebox belting out each of the songs here and quietly shedding a tear in one’s beer. Magnificent.

Israel Nash Gripka has been well regarded for some time with his two previous releases garnering favourable reviews. Now ditching the Gripka he unveils his latest offering Israel Nash’s Rain Plans following a relocation from his native Missouri to Austin Texas. God knows what Austin has done to him but if he could bottle it he’d make a fortune as this album astounds from start to finish. Nash wallows in the sumptuous sound that characterised the glory days of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young with particular emphasis on the Young contribution. In addition there is a sweeping pedal steel vista that hovers over and around some visceral guitar work that sends shivers up the spine evoking Jerry Garcia’s work on Crosby’s seminal work If Only I Could Remember My Name. All of this might mark Nash as a mere copyist or revivalist but the sheer beauty of some of the songs here soon overwhelms any such thoughts with the middle eight and outro in Myer Canyon in particular stunning the listener into a state of awe. Guitars weave and wander with a ferocity and lyricism that defies description and he repeats this throughout the album and there’s a moment in the title song where the guitars fizz and burn just like the best firework you’ve ever seen. Rather than go through this album song by song it’s sufficient to say that it burns brightly and holds its freak flag high and is a contender for the album of the year. If Nash can deliver even a tenth of this energy live then his show will be incandescent.

Check out the Glasgow Americana website