Our latest Short Cuts, a monthly feature where AUK casts a brief eye and ear on several albums we’ve received recently which just didn’t make the cut for a full review. Like most major music websites we can’t mention every album we get sent but we reckon the picks below deserve a nod. Click on the links to hear a song.
It’s a bumper selection this month as, due to the Christmas shenanigans, there was no December Shortcuts. We kick off the new year with a brief collection from Doug Schmude. ‘Cavalry’, his seventh album, is a short affair with only six songs on it with several pertaining to the wild west, none more so than ‘The Near Salvation Of Butch Cassidy‘. Here Schmude delivers a dramatic spoken word introduction before launching into a powerful telling of the infamous outlaw. Unfortunately songs such as ‘Tumbleweed’ and ‘Helen & Monty‘ fail to catch fire in a similar manner.
Sticking with the Wild West, Cary Morin is a native American and his album ‘Innocent Allies’ is a collection of songs inspired by the iconic Western artwork of Charles M. Russell (one of his iconic paintings adorns the album cover). Russell was one of the earliest white Americans who tried to preserve Native American culture in the 1880s. Without a hard copy it’s impossible to tie the songs here to any particular paintings but Morin delivers a set of songs which roam the prairies with familiar topics and themes. Chief of these is ‘Old Time Poet‘, a true western song, and ‘Big Nose George’s Outlaw Blues’ which stomps along finely, fuelled by some sweet pedal steel and a slight touch of Little Feat Funk.
The recording of Lars Nagel’s album, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was severely delayed when he suffered a tennis-related neck injury which prevented him from singing for quite a while. However, he’s in fine voice here as he skips through country-infected songs with a slight punk attitude such as ‘Johnny Was Right’ (about Johnny Thunders) and ‘You Will Never Change’, a hangover from his days in punk rockers The El Caminos. It’s an engaging album overall but ‘Gotta Move’, which points a finger at the dire state of the USA, these days is the pick of the songs.
We head to Australia to hear Sturt Avenue’s ‘Bury Me In The Garden’, a very fine album from a fairly loose-limbed collective based around singer/songwriter Byn Soden who play a folkish strand of indie rock which, at times, reminds one of The Go-Betweens. High praise you might think but have a listen to the title number to see the influence. Songs such as ‘Against The World’ and ‘Make Do’, both with engaging melodies and choruses, are quite perfect while Soden proves to be a dab hand as a writer, heard to best effect on the dreamlike ‘After Midnight’.
Life (and this article) is too short to detail Dusty Wright’s various adventures, from the Cleveland and New York post-punk scenes to the numerous bands and ventures he’s been engaged in. I’d advise a visit to his website which is a bit of a treasure trove. Anyhow, ‘Songs, Vol. 1′ is a handy primer as it collects 12 songs culled from nine albums he has released and it’s quite brilliant. If you want a quick fix of post-punk swagger then ‘Cherry Red Mustang‘ is your go to here while ‘I Got Lost’ rumbles quite excellently in an Iggy Pop manner without any attendant bluster. Wright can dart from rock to folk to psychedelia and all are represented here. ‘Rain, Rain’, an environmental plea has a touch of Gordon Lightfoot to it and ‘Emma Lee’ (with Robert Quine on guitar) is a spooky gothic Americana number. Be careful if you buy this album (recommended) as it might lead you to delve far too far into Wright’s extensive back catalogue.
You might expect a band from Florida such as Puppet for Poets to reflect the sunshine but this lot must be extremely pale-skinned as they seem to eschew the sunlight for gloomier climes. Chiming guitars, echoed vocals and big production leads one to think that they spend time listening to Echo & The Bunnymen and The Comsat Angels. Anyhow, ‘Boat Of Dreams’ is full of doomed romance and introspective ruminations which do pass muster but one wonders who is listening to this these days. Pick of the songs is ‘Why Why Why‘ which has a nice Velvet Underground touch to it along with the mournful ‘Miss You’.
Grey Delisle follows up her well received album of covers, ‘Borrowed’, with her first album of original songs in two decades on ‘She’s An Angel’ and it’s a revelation. With some stone cold country classics on show here, Delisle could catapult herself into the pantheon of great artists such as Loretta Lynn and good old Dolly. ‘Wasted’ is one such song as she damns her ex quite excellently via a brilliant country song with plenty of sweet pedal steel. ‘I Missed You’ is another gem, witty and spirited as Delisle regrets that she missed the opportunity to run over her cheatin’ man while driving her automobile, promising to do it right next time. A duet with Ray Benson (from Asleep At The Wheel) on ‘The Dog‘ is a pitch-perfect country weepie.
‘Wildcatting’ comes from a Texas combo based around Zane Ruttenberg who call themselves Thanks Light. Described as a delve into “Texas’ dark and messy history,” it’s not near as dark nor as messy as one would like. While the band endeavour to scrub away with a nod to roots based country songs Ruttenberg fails to command attention on much of the songs, his voice more suited to early rock’n’roll crooning as evidenced on ‘I’m Not In Trouble, I’m Trouble‘. You get the sense that with a bit more gravitas this album could pass muster but overall it fails to catch fire.
Regular readers of this column will know that we dig artists who come out of left field and so it is that Light Coloured Coat’s ‘Stone Tape Library’ is a welcome listen. The brainchild of Russell Kemp (formerly of The Apes and individually under various nom de plumes) the disc is one of those albums which plug into whimsical and pastoral English folk psychedelia and is quite the delight. ‘Gravel Road‘ has Syd Barrett-like idiosyncrasy and quite an eccentric arrangement with strings flying in and out along with a selection of instruments which sound as if they came from a toy chest. Throughout the album there’s gossamer-like confections of odd instruments and found sound effects cloaked around Kemp’s vocals and acoustic guitar creating a world of its own. It’s magical and truly engaging.
We get some lively raunch via Bristol’s The Lovely Basement on their third album ‘Lazy Travellers’ with the opening song ‘What I Like’ (which is a neat protest song, mentioning The Tolpuddle Martyrs amongst several other campaigns) a fine and loose-limbed rock’n’roll rattle (which maybe could do with more cowbell!). Anyhow, the band are a dab hand at tossing off songs with the looseness of the early Faces while also able to deliver a lovely psychedelic number which condemns the head of Exxon on ‘Lee Raymond Knew’. The pick of the songs here is the glorious rolling guitars of ‘Gas Station With A Bar‘ which sounds like a perfect Paisley Underground song.
Raintown Seers were finalists in the latest AUK Twang Factor battle and it’s safe to say they live up to that promise on their latest offering ‘Love Loss Home’ although there’s precious little twang to be heard. Instead, the songs are primarily banjo and fiddle driven giving the album a fine outdoor feel, exemplified on the final song ‘Until I Reach You’. There’s country/folk romping on ‘Carolina Sun’, an Appalachian hint to ‘Stanzas And Schemes’ while ‘Light Over Shade’ is a tasty slice of old-fashioned country rock which sounds as if Gillian Welch had picked up The Ozark Mountain Daredevils as her backing band.
Daniel Young, from Salt Lake City, draws the listener in immediately with the very sweet tones of ‘Desert Air’, a lovely pedal steel-inflected song which reminds one of John Prine and Michael M. Murphy. He repeats this several times on ‘Leave It Out To Dry’, his fourth album, with the title song in particular very impressive while ‘Slow Mornings‘ combines bar room piano with some more gliding pedal steel and sweet harmony vocals. He’s also able to giddy up on the Poco-like rocker ‘Help Us Get Along’ and the country honk of ‘Have You Ever Died’ while ‘When I Awake’ has a great chicken scratch feel to it. A very impressive album and the cover art (credited to Father Drogo and Bishop Biscuit but surely the work of Jon Langford) is pretty cool.
It’s tempting to just cut & paste the PR blurb for John Louis’ ‘For Everyone (Especially You)’ as he describes the album much more lyrically than this humble writer can. Suffice to say that it’s a ruminative “journey of decline, despair, resignation, and death – and the aftermath” delivered in a gloriously wearied style with a hangdog expression. Laments such as ‘The Wind’ and ‘Shut Down‘ capture perfectly hardscrabble moments with a tired sense of acceptance while Louis takes a page from Dylan’s ‘Planet Waves’ and offers two versions of a song, in this case, ‘I Wish I Remembered You’. The first is quiet and reflective, the second, according to Louis, “sort of like a fever-dream of the main character from the first version,” adds a creamy pedal steel to the mix along with angelic female backing vocals. Closing with a solo rendition of ‘Sleep Well’, Louis wraps up a particularly engaging album.
It seems almost mandatory to mention an artist from Oregon’s Portland every month and here it’s Blair Borax who, on ‘Tender Lately’, cleaves to the folkier side of the Portland Community. If you can consider her midway between Anna Tivel and Kassi Valazza that might give you an indication of how she sounds although we’d also toss in Alela Diane for comparison. Anyhow, Borax has a delightful voice which seems full of innocent delight, there’s a moment on the best song here, ‘A Wink Or Worse’ where she positively yelps. That song hovers around the hazy psychedelia which permeated Valazza’s last album but songs such as ‘Tender Lately‘ and ‘Bootstrap’s are very impressive while, once again, the album ends on a high note with ‘Who Cares’ which shoehorns all of Ms. Borax’s talent into one very likeable song.
Go for a full blown review of John Loius. I was blown away, bought it instantly.
Good to hear that we can help to sell albums, that’s what it’s all about. As for a full review, the short one worked for you and we only have so much space. Just spread the word and thanks so much for supporting us and the artists we review.