Birds of Chicago. Live From Space

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J.T. Nero and Alison Russell’s Birds of Chicago album was one of the best releases of last year capturing the pair in top form vocally as they wrapped their soulful voices around their excellent songs. Live from Space offers listeners the opportunity to hear the live experience as Nero and Russell, with a five piece band behind them, heave into Evanston, Illinois what must have been a doozie of a night. Recorded warts and all with no overdubs the first impression one has that there are no warts on show, the songs flow, the musicians rise to the occasion and the singing is as well done as in the studio, at times it’s hard to recall that this is a live album. Second impression however is that much of what we hear does not add to the studio recordings and the lack of introductions, tuning, glitches (there must have been at least one) means that there is a somewhat sterile air to the affair. This isn’t Live At Leeds or Kick Out The Jams.

Having said that the album is a delight from start to finish and there are moments when the spirit of the evening is captured with Prairie Lullaby standing out with its loose limbed canter, guitar jabs and tootling clarinet almost adding to a mini jam towards the end of the song. It’s a lengthy album, 76 minutes and 17 songs long and it does ebb and flow much like a live show would. There’s a definite peak six songs in with the aforementioned Prairie Lullaby followed by a superb Mountains/Forests that does gain from the live setting with Nero’s vocals impassioned as he strains to let the words tumble out. The best is kept to the end as the band whip themselves (and the audience) into a mild frenzy. Fever Dream‘s driving bass line develops into a powerful soul stew with a Booker T and the MGs’ urgency as Nero and Russell spar on vocals like Inez and Charlie Foxx. Trampoline gets a soul makeover, losing some of its original sunny disposition but gaining a solid soul groove.

Live From Space is a snapshot of a particular night and as such it does its job. Nero and Russell are the core, the heart and soul of the band and as the sleeve notes say they appear as a duo, trio, a quartet and occassionally, the “Cadillac edition,” seven strong. This is the Cadillac show and its unlikely to appear on these shores so the album is an essential for fans of the band. For newbies it might be best to start with last years album

They’re appearing in the UK this month and next as a four piece we believe, dates below
APRIL – UK
Thurs 24 Portsmouth The Square Tower
Fri 25 Whitstable The Royal Native Oyster Stores
Sat 26 Lewes The Elephant & Castle
Sun 27 Birmingham The Kitchen Garden Café
Tues 29 Hempstead, nr. Saffron Walden The Bluebell Inn
Weds 30 London Green Note
MAY – Ireland & N. Ireland
Fri 2 Dundalk Vantastival
Sat 3 Enniskillen Ardhowen Theatre
Mon 5 Dingle, Co. Kerry McCarthy’s Bar, Féile na Bealtaine Music & Arts Festival
Thurs 8 Clonmel, Co. Tipperary Raheen House Hotel
Fri 9 Galway Monroe’s co-headline with Liam Ó Maonlaí
Sat 10 Ballybofey, Co. Donegal Balor Arts Centre
Sun 11 Dublin Whelan’s
Mon 12 Ballymore Eustace Mick Murphy’s
Tues 13 Kildare Cunningham’s

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Birds Of Chicago

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J.T. Nero’s (AKA Jeremy Lyndsay) 2011 release, Mountains/Forests made it into our top ten of 2011 albums with its honeyed capturing of a sun dappled laid back soulful past. Blabber’n’Smoke compared it to early seventies Laurel canyon songsters with a touch of Van Morrison around the time of Tupelo Honey thrown in for good measure. Po’ Girl singer, Allison Russell featured heavily on Mountains/Forests harmonising beautifully with Nero and the vocals were indeed the highpoint of the album. Now Nero and Russell have taken the plunge and come up as a fully fledged pairing under the moniker Birds Of Chicago and huddled within their nest are the majority of musicians (garnered from Po’ Girl and Nero’s band The Clouds) who contributed to the very fine musical backdrop of Mountains/Forests. In essence (aside from the change of name) Birds Of Chicago is Mountains/Forests part two and apart from Russell writing two songs and taking lead vocals on several of the offerings there’s little to distinguish between them, indeed both stand as fine examples of fine song writing and singing.
Having said that there’s a broader palette at play here with some forays into Louisiana territory and a more rustic feel to some of the songs that at times recalls the late Ronnie Lane’s freewheeling celebration of travelling folk best captured on Cannonball where Nero sounds uncannily like Lane. The burbling bass line of Russell’s Sans Souci does recall vintage van Morrison but overall the sound is less reliant on past times as they stamp their own personality on some superb songs.
Trampoline kicks off the album in fine style with both singers swapping verses as the band kick up a funky dust and the vocals coalesce in the chorus. Russell’s Before She Goes is an eulogy for a departed one and introduces the Humboldt crows, perhaps the eponymous birds of Chicago who watch and wait. The crows reappear on the song Humboldt Crows which again appears to be an eulogy this time for Chicago itself. Nero does wax poetically in his writing with the best example, lyrically and performance wise to be heard in the amazing Moonglow Tapeworm that is part savvy street poetry, part surrealism. However the best is saved to last with the closing The Wide Sea where both singers unite with Nero’s cracked delivery perfectly balanced by Russell’s purity as the band surges with the unstoppable strength of a tide coming in.
Nero and Russell will be touring in the UK in April although as far as we can see there are no Scottish dates as yet.
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And some video here of some of the songs.

Birds Of Chicago | Audiotree.

Dave McGraw & Mandy Fer. Seed of a Pine

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Seed of a Pine is a fine collaborative effort from Arizona musicians Dave McGraw and Mandy Fer (previously known as Mandy Ferranini under which she’s released some solo stuff). Both names are new to us however a glance at some of the musicians who assisted on this recording was certainly inviting. J.T. Nero and Allison Russell who together recorded one of our favourite albums of last year, Mountains/Forests are present as is the relatively unknown but ever excellent Peter Mulvey. Together they have crafted an album that positively brims with excellent songs, fine playing and exquisite vocals. Although they write separately (with Fer contributing five songs to McGraw’s six) the pair are perfectly matched in terms of style and the vocal harmonies, shared throughout by combinations of the pair along with Nero, Russell and Mulvey provide a cohesive mellow sound.
The opening song So Comes The Day stumbles somewhat despite a promising opening and an intriguing similarity to Calexico’s dusty ballads. It’s a fine song but its meandering signatures makes for an odd opening. Thereafter however it’s plain sailing as the flowing chords of Golden Grey introduce us to the simple joy of a song well played and well sung with rippling guitar and a great vocal from Fer. The galloping Serotiny which follows adds some muscle in the shape of Fer’s rumbling guitar with the title (a term relating to the release of seeds in some plants such as pine cones in response to a trigger) pointing to one of the primary themes on display here which is the relationship of man to nature. The songs are full of references to clouds, wind, mountains and sky. Both writers have an abundance of nature in their lyrics, light, dark, dusk and night crop up time and time again with a woody cello adding a cold yet comforting feel to many of them. Grow and Forget The Diamonds are perhaps the best examples of this. Grow is a mysterious tale of star crossed lovers who lie in the grass counting stars in the summer wind that comes across as if Thomas Hardy were to write a contemporary love song. Fer’s voice burrs beautifully on this with McGraw supporting manfully. The spare arrangement with a basic guitar melody and plaintive violin is superb. Forget The Diamonds is a snappier arrangement with Christopher Merrill’s upright bass sturdy as an oak and the violin cello and piano recalling a Nick Drake moment. The lyrics here are almost metaphysical in their opaqueness and the vocals by Fer and Nero are simply superb. The title song, written by McGraw is a more traditional snapshot of a life lived and remembered, the music is sparse to begin with but swells as it progresses with some fine guitar and bass playing that recalls the jazzy folk of Pentangle. Throughout the album the playing is exemplary, capturing moods,indeed impressionistic. The voices melt and merge with a sublime degree of resignation although there is always a sense that there is a rebirth just around the corner.

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Grow

JT Nero Mountains/Forests

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“JT NERO, wandering mystic, stumbling misfit, moping misanthrope, movable feaster, crooner, poet!” Or so it says on his website. He’s also the alter ego of Jeremy Thomas Lindsay, singer with JT and the Clouds who released one of the better Americana albums of 2010 with “Caledonia.” On this ostensibly solo album he’s accompanied by several of the Clouds with some members of Canadian band Po’ Girl also in attendance. Recorded in only three days in a cabin in Wisconsin the album is a gentle affair with laid back instrumentation and full attention given to Lindsay’s soulful voice and the utterly amazing harmonisings of Allison Russell and Michelle McGrath. The three of them sing wonderfully together elevating this album into the top ten of this years releases. In addition Lindsay’s writing is well up to the task of providing a fine set of songs for them to sing with several of them outstanding. Roll Tide is perhaps the standout, the sound of crickets introduce a strummed guitar and Lindsay’s sweet voice before banjo and the heavenly harmonies enter while a gentle bass and organ support the fragile edifice. A beautiful song. Roll Tide references Tupelo Honey and elsewhere Elton John’s Tiny Dancer gets a name check and its perhaps no coincidence that much of this album reminds one of the singer songwriters of Laurel Canyon back in the seventies and the whole Troubadour scene they created. Singers and writers who drew inspiration from the countryside but who were also infused by the melodic influence of The Beatles the likes of Neil Young, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and Lowell George can all be heard in the grooves of this album. Thus the churning North Star, the Lennonesque Grey Ghost, the Nilsson like lyrics to Double Helix (Rainbow) and the New Orleans jive of Gallup, NM could all have sat well on a Warner Brothers album of the period. The blue eyed soul of Morrison of this period is well captured and here Lindsay’s day job with the Clouds stands him in good stead with their modern day take on soul.
So although recorded in a cabin this is not a back to the roots album unless the roots are that great blossoming of talent in LA back in the days. And despite most of the above one does not have to be an aficionado of LA Canyon music to enjoy what is an almost perfectly crafted album.
Lindsay along with Allison Russell and Po’ Girl drummer Mikey “Lighting” August have a short set of dates in England lined up in late November and December. Going by this album these look to be must attend!

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Roll Tide