This song may not have even won my attention during a recent listening binge if my nose hadn’t been buried in a particular book. “Bastard Out of Carolina” by Dorothy Allison is that particularity. An insightful young lady, Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright narrates the novel, telling the story of growing up poor in the South amongst a colorful cast of aunts and uncles. The rhythm of the language is pure music, while Ruth Anne’s life is pure hell. Besides a couple aunts who come to her rescue, the closest thing that brings solace to Ruth Anne’s life is gospel music. Julie Peel doesn’t play gospel music in the traditional sense, but her soulful voice, and the deep strains of cello echo the yearnings of one searching for some sort of salvation. I assume Peel’s song “Unfold” is about the loss of a lover, but its lyrics and theme resonate acutely with Ruth Anne’s loss of motherly love. Even though that book and this song are filled with grief, discovering them together has been a pleasant harmonic convergence.
Son Volt
Oops. Looks like I missed posting anything in the month of May. Ah, how one gets lost. Which I guess is an apt comparison to my relationship with Son Volt. For an album or two in a previous century, Jay Farrar had what I was looking for. Grit, wistfulness, steel guitar. And then there was Wide Swing Tremolo, and I don’t know. When I saw that Son Volt had a new album out an a free and legal MP3 to post, my first though was something along the lines of hoping this track, “Down to the Wire,” was a Neil Young cover. It’s not, but after listening to it a few times, that’s o.k. Maybe American Central Dust, out in about a month, will offer a way back to Son Volt.
William Fitzsimmons
I haven’t decided if William Fitzsimmons is a bastard with an irritating beard, or the undiscovered perfect boyfriend I missed sitting in the back of my most boring college class. Perhaps he’s both, and maybe I dated his evil angelic twin. Joseph, the boy who knew he’d never fight with his true love; the artist who was so sure he’d leave his young family in the dark of night.
Fitzsimmons’ most recent album, “The Sparrow and the Crow†is about divorce. His divorce, but I’m certain any divorcee could glean some ah-ha from listening. Call it music to listen to once you’ve accepted what has happened, comfortable with it or not. With a Master’s Degree in mental health you have to hope he’s got solid ideas about the delicacy of marriage. The joy that aches.
If You Would Come Back Home is officially on repeat in my head, rarely interrupted for a week. It’s a nice sunshine melancholy soundtrack to the spectacularly mundane everyday stuff. He understands what took me so long to see, good writing is not about the fanciest words, it’s about the perfect arrangement of the most simple words.
(by our friend Emily M.)
H-Burns
H-Burns is French. H-Burns is Renaud Brustlein and friends. H-Burns has webpages that Google translates for me and that end up with funny little bits and pieces of English. H-Burns is about the best thing I’ve listened to in the last calendar year. Way back in November, “Horses With No Medals” was posted by Largehearted Boy (nice one!), and that song has occupied a little space in my head for a long time since. It’s a beautiful little piece of work, the kind of combination of lyrics and music that makes me want to learn how to play the guitar, the way that Neil Young’s “Thrasher” did the first time I heard it. Over at H’s Hinah session, you can pull a Dylan cover, a cover of Magnolia Electric Co.’s “Farewell Transmission,” and a few other covers besides the two originals available here. And at MySpace you can listen to How strange it is to be anything at all, Renaud’s latest full-length spin. I think I’ll go learn French next, in case there are any songs in the original; it’s that good.
Rae Spoon
Rae Spoon is, according to the publicists, “one of the world’s only transgender country singers.” He’s also a clever songwriter and a bit of a wit, and really not all that country, at least on his most recent release, superioryouareinferior. This disc is a trip through musical styles, from lo-fi indie pop to mod folk. Drop a buck and download “If You Lose Your Horses” if you’re looking for a classic country track, or check out the album’s opener for an example of Spoon’s songwriting smarts — I never knew I wanted to write a song for the Great Lakes until I heard his. Oh, and if you’re looking for a record full of what it means to be a transgender country singer, you might want to keep on looking, because this isn’t it.
Laura Gibson
Since everyone else is doing it — all the other reviewers and critics and press types, that is — I’ll avoid comparison when discussing Laura Gibson, and instead just say that her smooth, precise, detached vocal styling should appeal to anyone who likes an eccentric female singer-songwriter. “Spirited,” off the forthcoming Beasts of Season, suggests an orchestrated lushness to this young Oregonian’s songs, as opposed to the more classic shuffle of “Hands in Pockets,” from 2006. Speaking of the new album, NPR will feature it next week in streaming audio as part of its Exclusive First Listen series.
Lloyd Cole
If it weren’t for our self-imposed “free and legal” mantra here at 3hive, without a doubt Lloyd Cole would’ve been post number one, origin of the 3hive species. Why? Briefly, because the guy is my musical and literary guru. His debut album, Rattlesnakes, recorded with his band The Commotions, has miraculously survived decades of repeat listens by this finicky music fan. Its healthy shelf-life is due in part to Cole’s smart, literate lyrics, the sweet jangle of guitars, and keyboardist Blair Cowan’s keyboard magic, which included his ability, either through his playing or re-wiring, to make his first keyboard, a Korg, sound uncannily like a Hammond. Also, because Lloyd Cole and The Commotions completely avoided the New Wave, New Romantic and other sounds du jour of the 80s, the album retains a timeless quality rare for the decade.
I discovered the album in high school and when I read how Cole found inspiration for Rattlesnakes’ title track in Joan Didion’s novel, Play It As It Lays, I promptly borrowed it from the library and discovered a strain of literature that infected me more than anything I had previously read in school, or otherwise. It very well may have been the first non-required novel I’d read and ever since I’ve never stopped searching for my next good read. The highlight of my appreciation for his music and literature tips came when Cole and I shopped for books together at Sam Weller’s in Salt Lake City in conjunction with a piece I wrote for the now-defunct Grid Magazine (I should dig that up and republish it here).
Since his days with The Commotions, Cole has output a wide array of solo albums ranging from not-so-different-than-his-work-with-The-Commotions (Lloyd Cole) to lushly soaring orchestral pop (Don’t Get Weird on Me, Babe) to ambient electronic (Plastic Wood) to meandering rock (Bad Vibes) to acoustic driven, straight-ahead singer-songwriter stylings (Antidepressant). This month Cole is releasing two expansive collections. Cleaning Out the Ashtrays is a four volume collection gathering b-sides, album outtakes and “pretty much every studio recording from 1989 until 2006 which was intended for commercial release, but which did not end up on an album.” You can find the track provided here, “Coattails,” on the last of the four compilations representing the most recently recorded songs. Finally, Cole strips down his entire 25-year recording career to nothing but his soulful crooning and an acoustic guitar in Folksinger, a two volume retrospective recorded live last year and five years previous in Ireland and Germany respectively. As Cole himself puts it, “The Folksinger Series is my attempt to document what it is that I do for a living these days…folksinger…I have two guitars and a plane ticket.” And I now have a mix of ninety-seven new and familiar songs to revisit and discover and to be re-inspired by my old friend Lloyd Cole yet again.
Neil Halstead
Today’s Christmas special comes courtesy of Brushfire Records. Looking for last minute Christmas music? Download this festive collection and 25% of the profit goes to support children’s music education. Lots of stocking stuffers here from Matt Costa, Money Mark, Rogue Wave, and of course Jack Johnson, but I can never pass up Neil Halstead’s toe-tapping authenticity song, so I’m passing this one along to you. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Cheers.
The Man in the Santa Suit [MP3, 3.8MB, 160kbps]
Ox
Regarding that which we would term “Americana,” do they call it “Canadiana” in the land to the North? Just curious. Ox = American lo-fi alt country from Canada. They showed up on a nice little sampler from Weewerk that I’ve been listening to like a homemade mix-tape lately. My favorite among these tracks is probably “Transam,” which with its wavering vocals and shady narrative (not to mention the Bond-themed guitar solo) kind of reminds me of those Neil Young songs about drug shipments and getting burned. The thing is, download any of these freebies from Ox’s two albums and you’ll find great narratives wailed over stripped down simplicity. This time less is more.
The Traditionist
Here’s one that’s been hiding right under my nose, Joey Barro, aka The Traditionist, a gentle-voiced crooner chronicling the details of his life through song. The liberal harmonica and slide guitar on “I Know My Ocean” makes it sound as if Barro’s an Austin 6th Street local and when he sings about the “sting of pine needles” on “Driftwood Doll” you imagine he’s recording in some cabin deep in Montana’s mountains. These assumptions would be wrong. Barro could be found guilty by association associating sonically with such surf-folk artists as Matt Costa or Neil Halstead. The loose and bouncy “A Sleep Be Told” easily charms and surprises when fuzzy guitars and a bubbly organ percolate their way through the bridge. Barro’s soft and poetic strains are a welcome antithesis to Huntington Beach’s unfortunately traditional dude-buddy-bro-jack-up-your-four-wheeler attitude.