have you ever wondered what makes a man play the washboard? i know i have. and if you are similarly inclined to ponder such things, you will want to check out the outlaw jd ray by 17 pygmies.
or jackson del ray’s continued attempts to drag the concept album back into unfashion. i s’pose when you scrape yrself free of savage republic, record “an odd, kind of surf-a-delic, emerson lake & palmer inspired cover version of the theme music to david lean’s lawrence of arabia” (perhaps the greatest song i never heard) then indulge whatever jiggered ideas come into yr cracked bonce – techno, samba, spectral cocteau pop, psycherockerry, prog, soundtracks and christ knows what else – it should come as no surprise that the burbling undercurrents of folk present since nineteen eighty something should eventually volcanically spew up.
so blind lemony pledge fresh jackson (which is funnier than you first think) along with jeff brenneman and meg maryatt have concocted this stew of brittle bones civil war waltzing and alan lomax slow-motion country blues shenanigans. there’s a story, i’m told, in amongst the 3/4 beats and washboard scrapes; a story of life and love, crime and punishment, running from the law, lies, loss and death (i’d imagine). y’know. the staples.
musically it’s a mix of slide geetar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, accordian. reminds me of a kinda minimalist morricone, or maximalist ry cooder. it’s the kindof creaking crackly moments evoked by sparklehorses quieter moments or norfolk & westerns whispered oldtime tales. and when all’s said and done this is a wonderfully lush little record.
note: these tracks contain frequencies far below the capabilities of earbuds and computer speakers. please listen accordingly.
yup. dig out the giant tannoys or big headphones for this bugger. would have been more fitting listening to this last weekend with the the world blankly ensconced in snow. two tracks from loud & sad’s joe houpert. birthed by guitar, sine generator and ring modulator.
with broken heart and sharp mind emerges intermittent and irregular like the heartbeat and beep pulsing through the seven minutes. man it’s brittle and delicate, snowflake-like weight and crackle. not meant pejoratively y’understand. has that huge yet minimalist feel to it that i dig so much in labradford and william basinski. almost unsettlingly quiet. manages to be somehow almost not there, yet at the same time have the colossus of gravity bearing down on you. looped chiming and a building low frequency rumble that’s strangely physical (amplified to teeth-rattling volumes) for such a hushed piece.
this, our good stone mother positively thunders from the speakers, comparatively speaking anyway. more clean treated six string plucks and bell-tone modulation. for this kindof thing there’s a nice emotional undercurrent, that’s personal, reflective like glass or mirror; a dreamy, hazy gauze-layered oneiric construct. mad as it sounds can’t help but think of the lonely melancholy of superman’s fortress of solitude.
after a while everything fades away, disintegrating in a way that seems entirely fitting.
so the finally part of saturday’s rum trilogy. two fellas. twelve songs. one free record. woozy viper: a good name to roll around the mouth and one that positively drips off the tongue.
hard for me not to dig this given it’s nods to the velvets, stones, stooges, femmes. total mucky sixties garage vibe with bits o’ blooze chucked in like some miniature exile on main street. creeping skeletal blues inflections aside, it’s sparse and to the point, no fucking around rock and roll. simple. basic. all played with a scruffy skuzzy swagger. and there ain’t a goddam thing wrong with that.
as opening lines go ‘i got graveyard dirt in my mouth’ is a pretty good one. but the highlight for me is the shuffling two chord fuzz of king kong and it’s amusing giant-monkey film / sexual politics metaphor:
“he didn’t give a shit until some girl messed with his head and he wound up dead”
