Category Archives: Free Download

The Civil Wars: Barton Hollow

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Two voices intertwined into one

From the first moment you hear the intertwining voices of Joy Williams and John Paul White, you might think of The Swell Season, She and Him and other male-female duos. But Civil Wars is less a duet than two voices pulled inextricably together as one. Their harmonies are guided by the sort of familial telepathy that usually only blesses siblings like the Stanleys, Louvins, Everlys or Avetts. Listening deeper into the album, the duo suggests Richard & Mimi Fariña (or Holly Golightly and Lawyer Dave) on the album’s bluesy title track. The drawn-out wordings can feel conspicuous at times, but the alchemy of their voices is never less than mesmerizing. The intimacy of the duo’s vocal tone stands in contrast to the emotional volume of their singing; they use mostly acoustic instrumentation, but conjure a power that feels electric.

White is a little bit country and folk, Williams a little bit pop, and they write songs that are both and neither – rootsy but sweet. They evoke the delicate outlines of romances that could possibly be, relationships that retain the intensity of adolescence, and the hymn-like drama of a troubled marriage in “Poison and Wine.” There are small town comings and goings, hopelessness and hoped-for redemption, and the pair ignites (unfounded) rumors of couplehood with their old-timey Western ballad, “Forget Me Not.” The digital album download includes two bonus covers, a radically reworked vocal arrangement of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back,” and an emphatic take on Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love” that adds a gypsy-jazz tone. Williams and White push and pull one another with their voices, but the battle is civil and the results enchanting. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Barton Hollow
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Ian Moore: El Sonido Nuevo

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Catchy originals from a singer-songwriter and his power-pop trio

Moore’s earlier years as a guitar-slinging Texan have completely receded from his rear-view mirror, but the last fifteen years has seen the blues not so much abandoned as muscled into balance with soul and pop flavors. His guitar playing is still beefy, and he can rip up rock solos, but his songs don’t rely on 12-bar progressions, his melodies are upbeat rather than blue, the harmonies reach to the British Invasion and California sunshine pop, and he offers himself more as a singer-songwriter than a guitarist. Those changes have developed organically over several years and albums, and here he transforms again from the psych inflections of Luminaria and experimental arrangements of To Be Loved to straight-ahead pop-rock. The new sound (or el sunido nuevo) is due in large part to the reduction of Moore’s band, the Lossy Coils, to a power-pop trio of guitar, bass and drums. The production skips layer-upon-layer overdubbing, favoring instead the trio’s rhythm section and strong, clear vocals. Moore’s stylistic reach is broad, from the tightly arranged a cappella intro of “Silver Sunshine” to the superb pop balladry of “Newfound Station” and blues-based punch of “Let Me Out.” At times the music takes on the pop-edged rock sounds of ‘70s bands like Foreigner, Electric Light Orchestra and Pink Floyd, with some David Gilmour-eque guitar adding power to “Hilary Step.” Moore’s a skilled songwriter, managing to close-rhyme “things I’ve missed” with “miscreants,” turning a pep talk into a nervous glance at a darker past, and weaving themes of uncertainty, self-doubt and loneliness into several songs. The closing “Sad Affair” provides a melodic homage to Alex Chilton’s “Holocaust,” and its downcast appraisal segues neatly back to the pub-rock energy of the opener. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Newfound Station
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Debate Team: Wins Again

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Catchy SoCal power-pop side-project

The best known names here are OK Go drummer Dan Konopka, OneRepublic guitarist Drew Brown and The Hush Sound bassist Bob Morris, but the songs (and vocals) come from guitarist Ryan McNeill. Collaboration between McNeill and his then-roommate Brown began in 2003, but was sidelined when OneRepublic scored a hit with “Apologize.” Flash forward a couple of years to a chance meeting between McNeill and Konopka that reignited interest in the abandoned band’s material, drew the drummer into playing as a side project. Though some of the material had been around for years, it was fresh to the newly formed band and the result is a buoyant collection of guitar pop whose instantly memorable melodies spring from ingratiating hooks; the playing is tight and the production polished, but retains the imaginative ideas (such as the chance meeting of racially diverse lookalikes in “Curious Pair”) and sincerity that major labels would worry away. Fans of Velvet Crush, Rooney, Sloan, and Teenage Fanclub (not to mention OK Go, OneRepublic and Hush) will take a strong liking to this all-too-short eight track mini-LP. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Curious Pair
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Yep: Once

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Loving covers album from a Rubinoo and a Belleville

Though Jon Rubin and Tommy Dunbar, the two remaining founders of the Rubinoos, often refer to Al Chan as “the new guy,” he’s entering his fourth decade of playing and singing with the band. His partner in Yep is the singer, songwriter and guitarist Mark Caputo of the pop-meets-Americana band Belleville. Together they’ve lovingly recorded an eclectic collection of ten cover songs (and one Caputo original), ranging from hit singles by Elton John (“Rocket Man”), the Kinks (“Waterloo Sunset”), and the Everly Brothers “So Sad (To Watch Good Love Go Bad),” to lesser-known titles by deeply respected songwriters that include Richard Buckner, Alan Wauters and Justin Currie. Ironically, the indie nature of this album makes the better-known songs the more daring picks, challenging Chan and Caputo to find original approaches to chestnuts. Happily, the duo is quite up to the task.

“Rocket Man” retains the dramatic build from a quiet intro to a rock ‘n’ roll finish, but John’s bluesy piano is replaced here with the singer-songwriter strum of acoustic guitars, and Yep’s bass-drums-guitar and duet vocals are heavier, embellished by spacey flourishes of Dave Zirbel’s steel. “Waterloo Sunset” is sung in close harmony to acoustic guitars, giving the song a more melancholy end-of-the-day vibe than the signature single, and “So Sad,” though sticking closely to the Everly’s harmony style, replaces the original’s tremolo guitar with steel, creating a deeper country feel. It’s particularly great to hear Don Everly’s songwriting highlighted in the company of both commercial legends and underground heroes (and a bit of both with Jeff Tweedy’s melody applied to Woody Guthrie’s “Hesitating Beauty”).

The uncertainty and yearning of the hits also flows through the insular world of Justin Currie’s “Make it Always Too Late,” the uneasily accepted inevitability of Teiture’s “Sleeping with the Lights On,” and the tearstained power-pop heartbreak of Joe Pernice’s “Crestfallen” (note to self: check out the Pernice Brothers’ 1998 debut, Overcome by Happiness). Producer John Cuniberti balances the clarity of modern recording with the warmth of DIY; on “Noise and Confusion,” for example, the track retains the thick center of Alan Wauters’ original, but the voices and instruments are given more definition than Wauters’ muddier production. Singing together, Chan and Caputo give these covers a fresh voice while drawing lines back to the originals’ legacies; they’re respectful but not slavish, just as fine covers should be. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The Rain Song
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Patrick Sweany: That Old Southern Drag

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Heart-stopping Southern soul from a Northern immigrant

Ohio native and Nashville immigrant Patrick Sweany makes rootsy sounds that are out of place on Music Row, but will be welcomed in the home of anyone who likes a side order of the ‘60s with their rock, soul, and blues. The album rolls through Southern soul, vintage rock ‘n’ roll and anguished R’n’B, dovetailing punchy production with memories of Delaney and Bonnie, Arthur Alexander and the throwback sounds of Marshall Crenshaw. The bass, drums and rhythm guitar bolster the melodic howl of Sweany’s voice; his singing is edgy, pleading, and emotionally raw from blue disappointment. The nostalgic “Rising Tide” hits a ‘70s rock groove that might have belonged to Bad Company, but the deep bass, funky horns, vamping organ and guitar figures of “The Edges” return the listener to the Memphis that Dan Penn laid on the Hacienda Brothers. The tour de force ballad “More and More” is given the Otis Redding treatment with hard percussive stops, while the acoustic plea “Frozen Lake” is gut-wrenching in the blue-soul of its romantic apprehension. Sweany is well-known as a guitarist and songwriter, and he bolster each accolade here, but it’s the deep well of emotion in every vocal that will make this record stick in your heart. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Frozen Lake
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The Witches: A Haunted Person’s Guide to the Witches

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Psych- and garage-inflected Detroit rock nods to the ‘60s and ‘70s

Troy Gregory (Killing Joke, Dirtbombs) formed the Witches in Detroit in the mid-90s, and over the course of a decade this loose aggregation, including fellow Michiganders John Nash and Jim Diamond, produced the five little-known psych-inflected rock albums sampled here. The opening guitar riff of “Everyone the Greatest” suggests Paul Revere and the Raiders before the rhythm section add a heavier bottom end and the vocal shades to a 1960s drone. Gregory’s songs have the hooks of garage and rock bands that broke through to AM radio in the ‘60s and ‘70s, tipping their hat to the Byrds and Flamin’ Groovies with “Lost With the Real Gone,” Love with “Sprit World Rising,” and T-Rex with bass-and-handclap rhythm of  “Down on Ugly Street.” In contrast to fashion-plate revivalists, the Witches showcase an amalgamation and evolution of their influences that keeps these tuneful echoes fresh. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Lost With the Real Gone
The Witches’ MySpace Page

Over the Rhine: The Long Surrender

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Cincinnati duo return with Joe Henry-produced release

On their first album in three years, Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine teams with producer Joe Henry. The darkness of 2005’s Drunkard’s Prayer and 2007’s Snow Angels is still evidenced in the lingering tempos, low, deliberate piano notes, slow shuffling drums and atmospheric pedal steel washes. The vocal phrases are broadly spaced, playing more like extemporaneous thought than written words, and though the lyrics appear straightforward on their surface, their meanings are elusive, thrown into shadow by the questions in Karin Bergquist’s voice and the moodiness of the arrangements. The album’s opener beckons one to recognize a good, yet ultimately failed effort; one is left to wonder if this the voice of experienced pragmatism or a siren’s lure to spiritual death. There are road trips and parades whose poetic allusions dovetail seamlessly with the band’s accompaniment, and a jazz ballad, “Infamous Love Song,” that recalls beat-era poetry.

The troubled love of “Oh Yeah By the Way,” sung as a duet with OTR co-leader Linford Detweiler, is more straightforward, and “Only God Can Save Us Now” cleverly uses a baby doll as a through line between pre-school and old age. Henry’s production is organic to the songs, as though they were developed in tandem. The stick percussion of “The King Knows How” adds tension with clock-like time-keeping, and Detweiler’s piano provides romantic introductions and interludes throughout the album. Bergquist and Detweiler write lyrics of inner emotion, and Henry’s production textures turn these thoughts and words into sound and music. The disc is delivered in a tri-fold digipack with two booklets – one containing lyrics, credits and Joe Henry’s liner notes, and the other a list of nearly a thousand fans who provided financial support for the recording. This is thoughtful, old-school music brought to you by twenty-first century listener-to-artist funding. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | The King Knows How
Over the Rhine’s Home Page

Apex Manor: The Year of Magical Drinking

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A power-pop singer/songwriter recovers from a not-so-magical year

There’s something exciting happening in Los Angeles; singer/songwriters like Bleu and Adam Marsland are breaking out once again, but instead of rolling down from the communal experience of the canyon, they’re holing up in homes and hobby studios. Such was the inspiration for former Broken West guitarist/vocalist Ross Flournoy, whose relocation to Pasadena after a band breakup severed his daily musical connection, and left him casting about for direction. Amid writer’s block and a daily beer habit, his lifesaver was an NPR song competition that afforded only a weekend to write, record and submit a song. The external pressure turned out to be just what he needed, documenting his denial, admission, inventory, acceptance and recovery as a songwriter in “Under the Gun.” With one under his belt, dozens more tumbled forth, some written alone, some with Adam Vine.

Apex Minor on record – Flournoy and former bandmate Brian Whelan, along with help from Andy Creighton, Derek Brown, Rob Douglass and Dan Iead – is reminiscent of Broken West, similarly propulsive and tuneful, but warmer and looser. The album begins at Flournoy’s nadir, looking up from the bottom of a half-drunk mason jar in “Southern Decline.” Producer Dan Long layers on buzzing rhythm guitars, demonstrating just how deeply Flournoy was buried in depression. His salvation as a songwriter leads to emotional re-emergence, self-awareness and on “I Know These Waters Well,” the twelfth-step desire to pass along new found wisdom. The album alternates rave-ups and soulful ballads, with Flournoy’s voice particularly expressive on the latter. Despite the detour, Apex Manor marks a terrific new phase, predicted by the Broken West, but ignited by a fresh start. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Under the Gun
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Kate Jacobs: Home Game

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A warm, musical letter from home

The girlishness in Kate Jacobs’ voice has always been perplexing. She sounds relaxed navigating the bossa-nova of “On My Monitor,” gliding along Astrud Gilberto-cool as she recounts the news of a young girl’s abduction; the everydayness of her delivery underlines the bland reaction one develops to the incessant nature of Internet-delivered instant alerts. Only at song’s end, as Jacob recoils from the constant provocation, does she react. But her reaction is to the news assault rather than the human one. Her own children take center stage for “All the Time in the World” and the album’s title track, but though her words of those of a mother, her voice retains its young tone. She continues to sound youthful as she cranks up the Kirsty MacColl-styled pop-rock “Make Him Smile,” and slides into the role of a jazz chanteuse for the ballad “A Sligo Lad.”

Six years since her last album, itself the product of a six-year hiatus during which she married and had children, Jacobs wrestles with the plenty of family life and the absence of solitary time, mutual attraction that doesn’t live up to the storybooks, and the ways in which children make time both stop and race. She’s a keen observer of her own life, dearly missing her years as a touring musician in “Rey Ordonez,” wistfully remembering the contrast of a cramped touring van and the imagination’s space of a baseball game on the radio. She recounts the joys and trials of parenting and marriage, but most deeply savors the rest that finally comes at the end of the day. Her longtime musical partner, Dave Schramm, adds blossoming notes of dobro, and surrounds Jacobs’ with guitars, drums, strings and backing vocals that turn her lyrics into a warm letter from a dear friend. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Rey Ordonez
Kate Jacobs’ Home Page

Tristeza: Paisajes

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Lush, thoughtful, enveloping post-punk instrumentals

Less than a year after their release of Fate Unfolds, Tristeza returns with a new full-length album of enveloping post-punk prog-rock instrumentals. Their press release name checks Spacemen 3, Felt and Talk Talk, but the strains of Televsion, Can, Stereolab and Tuxedomoon are also strong. The opening “Raise Your Gaze” threatens to transition from space into a blinding cacophony, but pulls back as the tune burns off the last of its fuel. James Lehner and Luis Hermosillo (drums and bass, respectively) provide the impulse drive, with the guitars adding a psychedelic overlay. The group adds syncopation and a Latin rhythm to “A Traves de los Ojos de Nuestras Hijas” (a title that alludes to the group’s collection of five daughters), but its funky bass line keeps things quite modern. The repetitive figures suggest post-punk instrumentalists like Pell Mell, but the intricacy of the playing reaches to jazz and prog-rock – but freed of the bombast that often sunk the latter. This is lush, melodic, rhythmic, thoughtful and enveloping. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | Raise Your Gaze
Tristeza’s Home Page