No shortage of new music this month, with an amazing variety of stuff out there. Enjoy the comments, savor some good music, and be sure to support our local independent record stores.
Antique Persuasion
Don’t Forget Me Little Darling
Voxhall Records
Antique Persuasion is a bluegrass super group of sorts, forged by Nashville publisher and producer Jimmy Metts, with the sole intent of creating a new tribute album (there have been many) devoted to the music of the Carter Family.
Enlisting the formidable talents of Brandon Rickman on guitar, Jenee Fleenor on fiddle, guitar and mandolin, and Brennen Leigh on guitar and mandolin—with all three sharing vocals—Metts clearly wants to present traditional country music in the way in which it was intended. As such there are no overdubs, the tracks were recorded live in the studio (typically in one or two takes) and post recording corrections were kept to an absolute minimum.
Of course given the vast catalog of Carter family recordings, Don’t Forget Me can at best skim the surface. It’s a nice touch to include the first song the Carters ever recorded (“Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow”) as well as the last (“You’re Gonna Be Sorry Cause You Let Me Down”) but the heft of this project comes from the middle ground, lesser known tracks that were staples of the Carter family’s road show.
While none of the performances are revelatory they do maintain the spirit of the Carter’s—tight yet fluid playing balanced by near perfect harmonies—and the spontaneity of the sessions work to its advantage. As such it manages to serve as both a reminder of the Carter family’s distinctive place in our musical heritage, as well as an introductory point for those to whom the Carter’s have only been a name in a history book.***1/2
Maura Kennedy
Villanelle: The Songs of Maura Kennedy and B.D. Love
Varese/Sarabande Records
It’s always gratifying to see a musician push the edges of their creative boundaries, taking a risk rather than stand pat on their strengths. Villanelle: The Songs of Maura Kennedy and B.D. Love certainly fits that criteria; having struck a friendship and mutual admiration the two agreed upon the parameters of this project.
Love would create a series of freeform poems and sonnets and hand them off to Kennedy. She in turn would set them to music, intentionally leaving them as he wrote them (no dropping of a syllable to fit the melodic structure) and, along with husband Pete Kennedy, write the arrangements and record the songs. It’s a daunting and somewhat daring task, and one that deserves credit for the mere attempt. Unfortunately it’s a not always successful pairing, as the somewhat traditional arrangements seem counterintuitive to the project’s aim.
What could have inspired both Love and Kennedy towards greater heights, instead finds them at odds. Certainly there are moments when their intentions click; the gorgeously ruminative “Bicycles with Broken Spokes” and the lovely title track both hold to Kennedy’s stated goal of “not writing standard song forms” to Love’s circular and elastic wordplay while the woeful lament of “Soldier’s Wife” is Kennedy at her best. Yet all too often the album falls back upon a rather generic blend of folk/blues/pop that neither distinguishes nor elevates, giving Villanelle a sense that the whole is less than the combined parts.
Maura’s voice—equal parts robust and delicate—are in fine form while Pete’s guitar work sizzles as always. But in the final count Villanelle seems a bit of a misstep, an example of the best of intentions going astray. ***
Neil Finn
Dizzy Heights
Lester Records
While not as visible as he was during the heyday of Crowded House, Neil Finn has over the past decade or so been no less active. He’s recorded an album with his brother Tim, reunited Crowded House for a pair of studio albums and an extensive tour (documented in a three disc Record Store Day exclusive), toured with his 7 Worlds Collide collective, formed the band Pajama Club (with wife Sharon and friend Sean Donnelly, both of whom assist here), and released a live record in tandem with Paul Kelly (see the next review). Yet despite this buzz of energy he’s been remiss in releasing an album of his songs under his own name.
Dizzy Heights is his first proper solo effort since 2001, yet it’s a radical departure for an artist best recognized for his impeccable harmonious structure and uncanny pop sensibilities. Collaborating with Dave Fridmann, a producer better known for his neo-psychedelic work with Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips, Finn kicks off the shackles of his past—however successful it was—and plows head first into relatively uncharted waters.
While the underpinnings of his sound—great hooks, gorgeous melodies, and deceptively simple lyrics—remain, they are masked within a soundscape of cascading effects, supple adornments, and production that is as defined as his song craft. The risk is that Finn’s strengths will be overwhelmed by his deliberate attempt to make Dizzy Heights more about surface and less about song. He need not worry. While bursting with orchestral strings and bubbly sound textures “Dive Bomber”, which opens the album, is pure Finn, a dazzling combination of effervescent pop with ominous undertones.
“White Lies and Alibis” sounds like an outtake from 1993’s Together Alone—Crowded House’s least commercial but most intriguing album-while a string of well-built pop gems ranging from “Flying in the Face of Love” to “Pony Ride,” and “Recluse” remind us yet again how effortlessly Finn can create songs that are both cerebral and unremittingly catchy. Which is the real strength of Dizzy Heights; it’s an ideal blend of Finn’s respected ability to conjure up the perfect pop song and his determination to not be anchored by same. As such it’s audacious, tuneful, unexpected, and as wonderful as anything he’s yet done. ****1/2
Neil Finn and Paul Kelly
Goin’ Your Way
EMI Records
The product of their highly successful 2013 tour, this two disc live album was originally limited to a down under release, a move necessitated by economics but frustrating to collectors. While both the New Zealand born Finn and native Australian Kelly have achieved huge success in their region of the world only Finn, via his work with Crowded House, has mirrored that acclaim (and sales) in the US.
Given their mutual respect and friendship it was only a matter of time before the pair collaborated on a larger scale, and those of us who love their music can only rejoice that Goin’ Your Way has finally been distributed in this country. Backed by a stellar band—including Neil’s son Elroy on drums, Kelly’s guitarist/singer nephew Dan (along with former Buttercups bassist/vocalist Zoe Hautmann) —the two reinvent and reinvigorate songs from their respective vast catalogs. More to the point they each inhabit the music of the other; there’s no lazily trading a few licks while sticking to a familiar formula.
Thus we have Finn taking chorus lead on Kelly’s “Leaps and Bounds” (among others) while Kelly provides throughout the vocal harmonies that Tim Finn once so beautifully laid down. All the better known songs are here, along with more than a few surprise choices, which makes this extensive set a hard core fans dream.
The interplay between the two is seamless, the band is both controlled and adventurous, and for the most part, the songs draw out the best of what each artist has to offer. Finn’s seductive “Into Temptation” is given new power while Kelly’s “Deeper Water”—a cyclical life and death rumination that ranks among his greatest songs—is more affecting than ever.
Toward the end, Goin’ Your Way tails off a bit—Kelly’s “Love Is The Law” has always come across as his straining too hard for a hit—while back to back covers of both Buddy Holly’s “Words of Love” and Henry Mancini’s “Moon River” seems a lazy way to end the evening. But for the most part this is a mesmerizing experience, showcasing the prolific talents of two musicians (and their band) who rarely disappoint and have given us an astounding number of great songs, tunes which inhabit much of the soundtrack of our adult lives. It’s hard to ask for more than that, other than a studio album (hey, a music lover can always dream, right?) ****
Eilen Jewel
Sundown Over Ghost Town
Signature Sounds
Following the release of her acclaimed 2011 effort Queen of the Minor Key, Eilen Jewell embarked upon an extensive US and European tour—nicely documented in a double live album—took time off to birth and begin raising a daughter, and made the risky decision to retreat from the energetic musical environs of Boston and return to the pastoral surroundings of her native Boise, Idaho.
That partially explains the four year gap between studio efforts but in truth, Sundown Over Ghost Town sounds like an album that needed to be thought through, carefully calculated, and made exact before its release.
The country/blues/folk/western swing feel that Jewel has developed is still intact, but there’s something much deeper going on here, an elevating of the bar in both composition and performance. Unlike her early works which, for all their charm were often uneven affairs, Sundown Over Ghost Town is Jewell in full stride, precisely extracting from each idea every nuance and essence. Yet it is still a lively affair, as Jewell jaunts her way through such delights as “Worried Mind” and “Songbird”, both of which reflect upon motherhood, and “Hallelujah Band” in which Jewell sings of “standing next to the tracks just to feel something pushing back” as if she knows her moments of familial joy may one day be tempered by challenge.
Backed by her touring band, husband and drummer Jason Beek, bassist Johnny Sciascia, and guitarist/mandolin player Jerry Miller, Sundown is reflective of musicians who instinctively know what the other needs and wants. The inclusion of a pair of outlying numbers, the mariachi fueled rocker “Rio Grande” and the surf guitar driven “Pages” are welcome evidence that Jewell is willing to expand beyond her musical horizons, take a few chances and have fun in the process. As an artist Eilen Jewell has only gotten better, and if this fine release is any indication, her best moments are still to come. ****
Cassandra Wilson
Coming Forth by Day
Legacy/Sony Music
Cassandra Wilson has long evoked the spirit of Billie Holiday—a honeyed blend of sassy and sultry—but has never fully embraced her music to such a scope as this. Released to mark the centennial of Holiday’s birth, Coming Forth by Day honors Lady Day as both a singer and composer. But Wilson wisely avoids the conventional by hiring Nick Launay—best known for his work with Nice Cave— as producer.
The pairing might appear at first incongruous but both Cave and Holiday share a pervasive brand of ethereal darkness, a sense of tension and destiny that seems just right for this project.
Wilson both interprets and inhabits Holiday’s songs; frequently luxuriating in atmosphere and mood which allows the material to take her where it may. Her own penchant for torch revelry is well served, particularly on a playful version of “Good Morning Heartache” while “Last Song for Lester” evokes newfound respect for both the subject (Lester Young) and the singer.
Coming Forth by Day would be the high water mark for many jazz singers but this is after all Cassandra Wilson. As such it maintains the impossibly lofty standard she’s set for herself, another feather in the cap of a career that has few equals and—some four decades in— shows not the slightest trace of decline. ****
Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank
American Shuffle
Chaperone Music
“I don’t know I was told, my thoughts become benign… Sometimes I think that all I’ve done was just a waste of time” bellows Ian Alexy in the marvelously off kilter “Down the Line”, the second track from American Shuffle. Along with brother Teague, Ian is one half of the Duluth, Minnesota band Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank.
The two, whose music sounds more than a bit like Basement Tapes era Band meets Captain Beefheart, have released one of this year’s most unexpected and refreshing records. Songs of the weary life of the transient (There’s Your Train, Here’s Your Ticket”) mingle with soulful love (“When The Night Comes”) and illicit encounters (“Low Flying Bird”) that are set against arrangements deeply rooted in the Midwest; banjo, pedal steel, and harmonica sit alongside guitars, bass, percussion, and even bits of trombone and viola.
The sound is impeccable—kudos to producer Ryan David Young, whose work with Trampled by Turtles is equally adept— and while the songs occasionally feel incomplete there is plenty here to like.
A pair of sports songs, one devoted to Packer great Brett Favre (“Old Number Four”) and the other to Yankee Billy Martin (“The Day Billy Martin Quits”) work equally well, but to my mind and ears baseball has always seemed better suited to storytelling and myth.
At less than forty minutes American Shuffle feels a bit like a throwback—one can almost hear the crackle of a needle dragging across well worn vinyl—but it’s a most welcome reprieve from the pretense that dominates far too much music these days. It’s direct, earthy, engaging and one heck of a lot of fun. ***1/2