Category Archives: Free Stream

Escondido: Walking With a Stranger

Escondido_WalkingWIthAStrangerSophomore album trades desert spaces for studio layers

The lonely trumpet that opens Escondido’s second album suggests another round of Lee Hazlewood-Ennio Morricone mashups. But the sparse, DIY live sound of their debut has given way to heavier, more studied productions here, and though vocalist Jessica Maros can still strike a mood of detachment, she’s pushed by the music to a fiercer emotion. Think of Debbie Harry fighting her way out of a momentary lapse into ennui rather than Hope Sandoval getting lost in it. The opening “Footprints” includes chanting that echoes the tribal weight of Adam & The Ants, and the album’s first single, “Heart is Black,” is as insinuous as the addictions it essays.

This is a decidedly more modern album than 2013’s The Ghost of Escondido, but the trade from desert spaces to studio layers hasn’t sacrificed the duo’s mystery, nor obscured the power of their duet singing. The twanging riff and ghostly vocalization that introduce “Idiot” set up a kiss-off whose lack of anger adds to the sting. Maros and her multi-instrumentalist partner Tyler James manage to make music that’s fragile and strong and disaffected and focused all at once. Maros can say she’s over it, but the melody says otherwise, and James’ subtle (and not so subtle) touches of keyboards and trumpets point in both directions.

The album’s title is taken from the song “Apartment,” recognizing the estrangement that can grow alongside familiarity. It’s that sort of duality that colors the album’s betrayal and recriminations, and the music’s intensity draws from the conflict. The grounding in 90’s alt-rock gives the album muscle, but the duo’s country and western (as opposed to Country & Western) roots carry the songs to an original place. Fans of Mazzy Star will be hooked, as they were for the debut, but just as quickly find themselves transported byond. Maros and James each bring something unique to their pairing, and paired, they’re mesmerizing. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Escondido’s Home Page

Chris Robley: The Great Make Believer

ChrisRobley_TheGreatMakeBelieverHanging on to hanging on

Whatever else he’s done, Chris Robley’s bi-coastal habitation of Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine positions him as the answer to a singer-songwriter trivia question. It’s the sort of poetic, yet easily consumed detail that also threads through his songwriting. And though his poetry is filled with imagery and symbolism, his lyrics follow more traditional narratives, albeit with the observational details and sensitivity of a poet. Robley’s sixth album was written and recorded amid major life changes – including divorce, relocation and romantic renewal – and though the songs aren’t directly autobiographical, it’s easy to spot a very real path of anxiety, confusion, sadness, depression, weariness, relief and rebirth, sewn together by hints of optimism and a helping of catharsis.

Perhaps the most important musical change from previous releases is Robley’s choice to relinquish most of the instrumental duties to bandmates. Where his earlier albums had been insular, overdubbed studio productions, his latest relies not only on other players, but the dynamism of live recording and the shucking of orchestration and production tricks. Though much of the album draws its melodic tint from Robley’s long-time pop inspirations (i.e., the Beatles), several of the songs are stripped to country-tinged basics, with Paul Brainard’s steel and Bob Dunham’s guitar given prominent placement. Their twang pushes Robley to preach on “Lonely People” and underlines the sort of introspective reflections you’d rather not have staring back at you from the mirror.

The album opens with “Eden,” a moment of renewal spurred by the realization that mistakes are the fuel of improvement. The story then rewinds to follow the path of destruction that led to understanding. The betrayals are largely passive, with relationships quietly abandoned and allowed to disintegrate; but the wrong-doings nag the conscience and provoke the sleepless nights of “Evangeline.” The seemingly cheery recovery of “Lonely People” is turned back by self-doubt and apologies geared more to the sender than the recipient. “Silently” closes the album with the no-fault observation that even the brightest fires expire silently. The song’s old-timey vocal and kazoo solo are nice touches, and just two of the album’s many charms. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Chris Robley’s Home Page

Lee Harvey Osmond: Beautiful Scars

LeeHarveyOsmond_BeautifulScarsComing to grips with the experiences that define you

Acid-folk artist Tom Wilson and producer Michael Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) have conjured a dark electric sound for Wilson’s third album under the Lee Harvey Osmond name. Timmins’ production layers piano and guitar over a heavy bottom end, creating a musically cavernous space in which Wilson touches upon the poetic delivery of Leonard Cohen, the downtown sound of Tom Waits, and the more frightening regions of Captain Beefheart’s growl. Wilson is hypnotic as he stretches out over rhythm-rich tracks of drums and bass, pushed along by reeds and guitar, and punctuated by echos, reverb and stabs of backward guitar.

The acid and folk of acid-folk are heard back to back in “Oh the Gods” and “Dreams Come and Go,” as the spacey guitars and close-miked vocal of the former give way to the acoustic picking of the latter. The contrast is stark, no doubt purposely so, but with a blue mood that ties the songs together. The closing couplet of “Black Spruce” and “Bottom of Our Love” offers the same dynamic, the former expanding into a flute and blues jam, and the latter a weary acoustic lament. It’s the sort of contrast Led Zeppelin employed, though with vocals whose power is in their reserve rather than their ostentation.

“Loser Without Your Love” is both assured and distracted as it’s forced to admit “I’m just a loser without your love… I guess.” The vocal ellipsis doubts the statement’s sincerity, and the song’s instrumental playout leaves time for additional pondering. It’s a great opening to an album whose performance is comfortable with its confessions, if not always certain of their truth. Echo and distortion on the guitars and voices balance the supple rhythm grooves, and the acoustic bass and vibraphone of “Blue Moon Drive” soothe cool, whispered vocals that still manage to ring with passion.

Wilson doesn’t easily let go of his memories, seeming to dangle at the mercy of what was rather than what is or what could be. He pulls at his chains but can’t break free, a struggle echoed in the balance of insinuating music beds and shocks of backwards guitar. The disintegration of “Hey Hey Hey” is as much the lives of two individuals as of their pairing, and the conciliatory “How Does it Feel” has the subversive low notes of Lee Hazlewood. In his mid-50s, Wilson seems to have realized that it may be too late to remake himself, but it’s the right time to get comfortable with the scars that makes him who he is. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Lee Harvey Osmond’s Home Page

Brett Harris: Up in the Air

BrettHarris_UpInTheAirSuper sophomore release from a pop acolyte

Touring as a member of the dBs and the Big Star Third tribute cast, Harris had the opportunity to spend time making music with (and playing the music of) many of pop’s purest purveyors. His second full-length album is indebted to the Beatles, particularly on the Revolver-esque opener “End of the Rope” and the descending line of “Shadetree,” but you can also hear the influence of the dBs, Big Star, Badfinger and many others throughout the album. It’s not a period piece, but Harris makes no attempt to hide his musical lineage. The clarinet-led breakdown of “Lies” echoes the music hall influences that also struck Paul McCartney and Ray Davies, and the crooned vocal of “Out of the Blue” suggests Nilsson and Eric Carmen.

Harris’ southern connections surface in the soulful horns of side one’s closer (that’s right, the CD divides the song list into two five-song halves) “High Times,” sounding like something the Box Tops would have recorded for a B-side. The vibe continues in the organ lined “Rumor,” with sophisticated drumming and a lonely trumpet adding dramatic touches. You can continue to spot influences (early-70s Fleetwood Mac on the coincidentally named “Rumor,” and Todd Rundgren on the closing “Spanish Moss”), but Harris runs through his musical gears so smoothly as to turn his antecedents into jazz-like quotes rather than whole-cloth sources. The shadings have grown finer and more diverse in the six years since his debut, but the craft has been in place since Man of Few Words hit the racks in 2010.

Harris doesn’t often write directly from life, but he dips into personal heartbreak and indecision for “Lies,” singing memorable lyrics (“seems my mind’s made up, but my heart it feels so hollow, the unintended consequence of bitter pills I had to swallow”) with a Dylan-y rasp. Even without specific biographical details, Harris’ songs are clearly rooted in experience as he sings of damaging suspicions, healing hearts stumbling onto hope and cautious entry into new relationships. The Durham-area backing musicians are as talented and well-schooled as Harris himself, providing arrangements that are deep and surprising, such as the backwards guitar solo layered on the strings and bass of “Summer Night.” Harris has a lot of fans – famous and otherwise – and they’ll be happy to find their outsized expectations fulfilled by this terrific album. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Brett Harris’ Home Page

Brian Ritchey: Bordeaux

BrianRitchey_BordeauxFollowing Justin Townes Earle’s advice to “write what you know”

Nashvillian Brian Ritchey has been something of a chameleon as he’s rambled through Americana (E.P.), garage pop and singer-songwriter crooning (If I Were a Painter), and even an ambitious concept album (No Way Out of This House). It’s a sophisticated. disparate catalog threaded with a Southern sensibility that links to this latest full-length release. His earlier notes of Americana, garage blues, soul and singer-songwriter are here, alongside twangier bits of country and hummable pop-rock, but the arrangements are more straightforward and more quickly ingratiating than his last outing.

The songs suggest the Band (“Victory March”), canyon country (“We’re Just Wrong”), Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys (the clip-clop waltz time of “Someone Else”) and even Screaming Jay Hawkins (“Rest My Head”). Ritchey sings of yearning, getting by, breaking away and moving on, and his downbeat topics will surprise those who first latch onto his incredibly hummable hooks. The album strikes defiant notes with “I’m Not Gone” and “Not Today,” but Ritchey more often seems to grapple with a world he can only react to rather than impact, turning autobiographical seeds into compelling vignettes that could just as easily be the listener’s truth as they are the singer’s. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Brian Ritchey’s Home Page

Queen of Jeans: EP

This Philadelphia quartet’s first two tracks (“Dance (Get Off Your Ass)” and “Rollerdyke“) are now expanded with four additions into a eponymous EP, streamable below, downloadable from Bandcamp, and buyable as a vinyl 12″ from Third Uncle. The new songs are just as mesmerizing in their nods to 1960s girl groups and lush 1990s alternatives run through a dreamy DIY psych aesthetic. Great stuff!

And while you’re here, check out their live set for WXPN:

Bob Woodruff: The Year We Tried to Kill the Pain

BobWoodruff_TheYearWeTriedToKillThePainA 1990s Nashville artist finds his soul down a rough road

Singer-songwriter Bob Woodruff garnered good notices for his mid-90s major label country albums Dreams & Saturday Nights and Desire Road, and then fell largely out of sight. He finally resurfaced for an indie album in 2011, and recorded and released the original version of this album in Sweden in 2013. Luckily, Woodruff’s soul- and country-tinged rock is timeless, and a 2016 reintroduction to this release is as welcome as the less-widely circulated first blush three years ago. Returning to music after several years of hard living, Woodruff not only sounds seasoned, but full of life experience to funnel into both the words and melodic tone of his songs.

As good as Woodruff’s originals are – and we’ll get to those in a minute – his slow, country-soul crawl through the Supremes’ “Stop in the Name of Love” is revelatory. The song’s opening guitar figure gives no clue as to what’s coming, but as Woodruff launches into the lyric’s plea with a slight hitch in his voice, the guitar turns to chords whose familiarity will provoke the listener’s memory. The tempo is similar to Jonell Mosser’s cover from the film Hope Floats, but underlined by Clas Olofsson’s pedal steel, Woodruff’s vocal mourns a relationship that’s already finished, rather than one that might be saved through confrontation. Among the song’s many varied renditions, this one’s a tour de force.

Woodruff sounds a bit like Bob Delevante, and a bit like Willie Nile, pulling in rock, country, soul and blues influences that range from the Byrdsian “I’m the Train” to the New Orleans funk “Bayou Girl” to the crooned southern soul “There’s Something There.” The opening “I Didn’t Know” strikes a tone of recovery, with happy memories reawakened by a second chance. The title song recounts rougher years, resolving to remember the past without getting stuck in its decaying trajectory. Woodruff longs for connection to others, to a better self, to a past whose fissures were of his own making, and most of all, to the salvation of hope.

The path from self-pity to self-examination to self-confidence is drawn in the personal reckoning of “So Many Teardrops,” with a breakdown that keys the song’s emotional turn, and the album closes with an impromptu live performance of the wishful “If I Were Your Man.” One might think the album’s material is solely a product of Woodruff’s wilderness years, but several of the songs, including the title track, are drawn from his earlier albums. The repurposed material is transformed by its distance from ‘90s Nashville, freed from the confines of the city’s sound. This is the record Woodruff had in him twenty years ago, but not yet the miles on his soul or the independent distribution to deliver. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Bob Woodruff’s Home Page

Paul Burch: Meridian Rising

PaulBurch_MeridianRisingInspired fictionalized autobiography of Jimmie Rodgers

Paul Burch’s semi-fictional autobiography of Jimmie Rodgers isn’t nostalgic, it’s of a piece with the era it essays. His song cycle captures Rodgers’ times in a long form album that is, in today’s per-track streaming world, its own throwback. Burch knits together the sites, sounds, people and places that greeted Rodgers as he rode the rails and traversed the highways that led to tent shows, recording studios and international fame. The story follows Rodgers from his boyhood home of Meridian, Mississippi to his untimely death in New York City, creating an autobiography that Burch characterizes as “honest, but not necessarily true.”

The songs weave a loose narrative arc, but the album is best experienced as an immersive kaleidoscope of sounds and images. The stories take the listener traveling with Rodgers as he gains experience and channels it into creating folk, country, ragtime, blues and early jazz. The album’s guitar, bass, fiddle and drums, are augmented by clarinet, saxophone, trombone, tuba, bouzouki and Hawaiian steel guitar, fleshing out the wide world of music with which Rodgers’ communed. The arrangements swell and narrow in instrumentation, further echoing the range of combos with which Rodgers himself recording.

The nostalgic memories of Meridian that open the album quickly disappear in the rearview mirror as Rodgers hits the road in his V16 Cadillac. Burch maps Rodgers’ path through travelling shows, backstage surprises, depression-era social politics, gambling misfortune and a child’s untimely death. “To Paris (With Regrets)” imagines Rodgers longing to visit the City of Light, while the latter third of the album finds Rodgers’ health and commercial fortunes spiraling to their end. The instrumental transition “Sign of Distress” signals the beginning of the end, but there’s one more day of life as Rodgers visits Coney Island in “Fast Fuse Mama,” and life after death in the apologetic letter home, “Sorry I Can’t Stay.”

The story concludes with “Back to the Honky Tonks,” echoing Rodgers farewell in his last recording for Victor, and the album closes with the recessional “Oh, Didn’t He Ramble.” It’s a bittersweet end to Rodgers’ short, blazing trail of success and Burch’s deftly imagined autobiography. In telling this story, Burch has surrounded himself with top-notch instrumentalists, including Jen Gunderman, Fats Kaplin, Tim O’Brien and Garry Tallent, and guest vocalists Billy Bragg and Jon Langford. This is a terrific, original project whose nuanced execution lives up to its grandly inspired conception. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Paul Burch’s Home Page

Clay Parker and Jodi James: Clay Parker and Jodi James

ClayParkerJodiJames_ClayParkerJodiJamesStirring duets from two Baton Rouge singer-songwriters

Parker and James are Baton Rouge singer-songwriters whose separate careers have twined for this EP. Written together, and sung in tight harmony, the pair sounds as if they’ve been duetting since childhood. Though built mostly on folk-styled acoustic guitars, the melodies, mood and Paul Buller’s pedal steel give the album a country edge. The EP combines five originals with an arrangement of the traditional “Moonshiner.” The latter has been a staple of the folk scene since the early ‘60s, and Parker and James’ arrangement brings to mind Simon and Garfunkel’s debut album with both their harmonies and the fragility of James’ solo flights.

The duo’s original material includes the bluesy “Showboatin’,” whose clever descriptions evoke Richard & Mimi Farina’s “Hard Lovin’ Loser.” There are disrupted relationships in “Come Back” and “What it Knows,” with the latter offering a country reflection of the last chance confusion of Great Big World’s “Say Something.” The set closing “After the Smoke Clears” carries a similar mood of dissolution, magnified by the emotional resonance of the paired singing. The quality of Parker and James’ work was certainly foreshadowed by their solo outings, but the charisma of their duets is uniquely mesmerizing. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

Clay Parker & Jodi James’ Home Page
Clay Parker’s Home Page
Jodi James’ Home Page