20 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

I loved Fire on Fire's The Orchard, so I was pretty disappointed to learn from a recent Michael Gira interview that they had dissolved. My despair turned out to be extremely short-lived though, as I've since discovered that Colleen Kinsella and Caleb Mulkerin have been self-releasing a steady stream of slightly more feral and weird cassettes on their dontrusttheruin imprint ever since. Big Blood sometimes seems a little more sketchlike and rough than Fire on Fire, but the duo's backwoods brilliance remains intact and is generally enhanced by its underproduced and artfully artless nature.

dontrusttheruin/Phase!

The most significant difference between Fire on Fire and Big Blood is that Colleen Kinsella (or her alter-ego Asian Mae) is often the lead vocalist, which may very well be the best thing about the band.She certainly spent some time on the microphone with Fire on Fire, but usually in chorus with others and never quite this conspicuously ragged.Her wild and oft-discordantly harmonized singing is definitely a bit of an acquired taste, but it is one of the most important elements in Big Blood’s transcendence of the freak-folk ghetto: when Colleen is at her most unhinged, she sounds absolutely possessed or ecstatic (as on "The Grove is Hotter Than An Ocean's Oven").Caleb, for his part, is also no slouch in the crazily urgent vocal department.At their best, these two have a way of singing their simple songs with such discordant abandon that they achieve a devastating and primal perfection."In the Shade," in particular, is probably the most stomping, raucous, and pure piece of music that I will hear this year.Then again, there are also times when the duo just simply write and sing some good songs, like the languid and hazy "In The Light of the Moon."

The Grove, however, is not quite a start-to-finish classic–there is definitely some filler and Caleb and Colleen occasionally err on the side of shrillness or delve into overly reverbed slide-guitar blues.Reverb does not particularly suit Big Blood, as their songs don't work as well when stripped of their rawness and intimacy: this duo is great because they sound like hillbillies on the verge of the rapture, not because they churn out flawless folk rock melodies and hot blues licks.However, their rare abstract/experimental moments are also pretty rewarding, such as "Saints & Lepers," which collages a bittersweet banjo motif together with car horns, an ice cream truck, and a marching band in a remarkably effective way.I also enjoyed the Eastern-tinged lysergic weirdness of "Something Brighter Than the News" quite a bit–it was no coincidence that the duo collaborated with Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop back in their Cerberus Shoal days.

Despite the few missteps and less inspired pieces, The Grove is pretty much essential for anyone that can appreciate beauty in its most organic and unpolished form: Kinsella and Mulkerin have tapped into something quite remarkable and vital here.This album was originally released on cassette by the Greek label Phase! in 2008 before being re-released as a CDR on the band's own label, neither of which can be readily tracked down in physical form.Fortunately, however, Big Blood have helpfully posted this and all of their other out-of-print albums on WMFU's Free Music Archive.

Samples:

• In The Shade
• In the Light of the Moon
• The Grove is Hotter Than an Ocean's Oven

 

15 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

What began apparently as an unplanned collaboration between Leslie Winer's text and spoken word with CM von Hausswolff's electronics in 2011 eventually evolved into this full fledged LP release, also Winer's first all original release in 25 years. The result, (1), is a release that heavily strikes a balance between the two predominant elements, without one ever overshadowing the other. Winer’s idiosyncratic voice and artistically obtuse writing and von Hausswolff's understated use of electronics blend together wonderfully for this record.

Monotype Records

Leslie Winer's career has been well documented, often focusing on her stint as a fashion model and her association with art iconoclasts such as Burroughs and Basquiat.Only in recent years has there been greater acknowledgement of the obscurity and anonymity of her musical output in the 1980s and 1990s.Reissues and compilations such as the Tapeworm label offshoot Wormhole’s excellent Leslie Winer &c have given her more significant exposure and recognition of her pioneering role in electronic music in the 1990s.That is why (1) is significant for being the first all new album-length material in two and a half decades, and her distinct style has developed fittingly in the passing time.

While Winer and von Hausswolff both get equal representation, the first side of this record and its two lengthy pieces, "I'll Be Mother" and "This Discreet Organ" has more of an emphasis on Winer's text and reading.Von Hausswolff's electronics are rich, but minimal in their structure."I'll Be Mother" especially has von Hauswolff's electronics hovering further in the background, creating a subtle underscoring while the focus is on Winer's stream of consciousness texts.Her intentionally detached, deadpan voice appears again the focus of "This Discreet Organ", but here the electronics come across with a bit more force and variation.

The duo trades off duties of primary focus on "Can I Take Your Order," from Winer's filtered delivery to von Hauswolff's swelling electronics throughout its duration, and the whole piece having a more varied and diverse feel."Weatherman" also presents the voice as more treated with effects, as the electronics pulsate in an otherworldly space to make it a standout on the album."Talked to Some of Them," also credited to artist and filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad, reworks recordings from "I'll Be Mother" into a different, more effected performance that was originally part of the film Electra, Texas 2008.The rising and falling electronic sound and an emphasis on the hazy, narcotic atmosphere come together excellently.

Spoken word performances are usually hit and miss with me, largely because I feel too often the text overshadows the musical portion of it, and it is usually the musical elements of a recording I come back to most often.Leslie Winer and CM von Hausswolff have done an excellent job at balancing these two worlds, and so it made it easy to listen to more than once, sometimes focusing on the musical components, other times letting my mind lock into the complex textual elements.

samples:

• I'll Be Mother
• Weatherman
• Talked to Some of Them

 

15 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Now thankfully available digitally (lavish packaging means lavish overseas postage rates), Memorious Earth is the film soundtrack from Richard Skelton and Autumn Richardson’s ambitious recent retrospective that involved a gallery show, a book of writings and photography, and (of course) a film.  While I have not seen the film (it was only included in the extremely limited "archive box"), the album works just fine without its intended visual component, doubling down on the long-form aesthetic of predecessor Diagrams for the Summoning of Wolves for a single 44-minute epic with considerably more success.  In fact, this is exactly the Richard Skelton album that the world needed: there are already plenty of wonderful distillations of his prickly, undulating brilliance around, but now there is a mesmerizing and slow-burning expansion as well.

Aeolian/Corbel Stone Press

For better or worse, one of the notable (and inherent) side-effects of Autumn and Richard's earthy aesthetic is that they increasingly seem to operate on a time-scale that is considerably more geologic than human.  In the short-term sense, that means that Memorious Earth's "Now This Terrestrial Sea" takes its time to get rolling, unfolding as a subdued and gently pulsing rumble for almost eight minutes before it begins to truly blossom.  In a long-term sense, however, such an approach offers a deliciously simmering build-up of tension for those with enough patience to appreciate it.  In fact, "Terrestrial Sea" feels a lot like the musical equivalent of time-lapse photography, as there is not much transformation at all from instant to instant, but the cumulative effect is ultimately quite powerful.  It also feels a lot like extreme slow-motion footage of a catastrophic act of God like a volcano, earthquake, or tidal wave: an unstoppable creeping force that slowly consumes everything in its path as it swells in power and violence.  A similarly apt metaphor would be a solar eclipse: a dark ominous mass gradually snuffing out all the light from the sky.

As hyperbolic as all that sounds, "Terrestrial Sea" more than backs up any comparisons to overwhelming elemental forces, as it is a masterpiece of engulfing, slow-building, and crushing density that demands to be played at window-rattling volume.  In fact, that is the only real way to fully appreciate Memorious Earth’s immense majesty, as what it offers is minimalism at its most apocalyptic and little else.  There is no real harmonic, melodic, or rhythmic development to be found and there does not need to be–such frivolous fripperies would only be distracting and out of place here.  Memorious Earth is nothing but vibrant texture and earth-shaking primal force executed perfectly: there is a pulse and a rumble and they just relentlessly grow in volume and fury for the better part of an hour.  Well, at least in spirit–there are some timely oases of comparative calm throughout the album, but they only serve to set the stage for future resurgences.  Without those periodic breaks in tension, Memorious Earth's power would gradually become numbing.  With them, however, it continues to make a fresh impact again and again with each new plateau of heaviness.

Aside from being a start-to-finish stellar album, Memorious Earth is also curiously significant for lacking many of the overt traits that previously distinguished the duo's work.  For example, Autumn Richardson’s vocals are nowhere to be found at all.  Also, Richard’s characteristic spray of sharp harmonics is absent (or buried) as well, as is any audible scraping or creaking from his various bowed instruments.  Normally, such a suppression of an artist’s defining characteristics would be recipe for disaster (or at least disappointment), but such a vanishing act seems weirdly appropriate and inspired in this context–it is only natural that such a massive and roiling juggernaut would subsume its creators.  The trick, however, is that only *AR's superficial traits have been erased: their deep understanding of timing, texture, and dynamics has never been more masterfully focused.  This is a stone-cold tour de force.

• Now This Terrestrial Sea (excerpt one)
• Now This Terrestrial Sea (excerpt two)
• Now This Terrestrial Sea (excerpt three)

 

15 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

This is an expanded reissue of a 2012 album that documented two 2009 live performances in which Nurse With Wound, Julia Kent, and Italy’s Blind Cave Salamander teamed up for an improbable variation/reinterpretation of NWW’s classic Soliloquy for Lilith album (an album that was largely the product of an unexpected and unrepeatable electromagnetic phenomenon).  The expansion in question is a third performance in an identical vein to the previous two.  Notably, however, that vein is not all that much like Soliloquy, which makes Cabbalism something separate and singular rather than just a mere live album.  In fact, it does not even sound much like NWW at all, which I suppose makes this a very successful collaboration.  While the third piece is not nearly divergent enough to warrant repurchasing the album for anyone who pounced on Cabbalism this first time around, the reissue is a very enticing package for those of us who unwisely slept on it.

ICR

It is easy to see why this project appealed to Steven Stapleton, as it is a fundamentally absurd and open-ended one.  Given that the original Soliloquy was largely the inhuman work of a feedback loop of effects pedals and a helpful magnetic field, anything improvised by a group of musicians armed with guitars, violins, cellos, and a singing saw is inherently destined to be unrecognizably different right from the start.  The sole apparent common ground between Cabbalism and Soliloquy is merely that there are some electronics making unpredictable sounds and that there is a similarly droning and hallucinatory aesthetic.  In fact, the first time that I ever heard Cabbalism (without knowing the backstory), I immediately assumed that Stapleton and Colin Potter were just doing some live processing on a performance by an ethno-ambient drone ensemble.  That is not the case at all, but if Stapleton sincerely set out to replicate the stark and alien beauty of Soliloquy, he was quickly buried under too many layers of other stuff to succeed.

In general, all three performances are built upon a low drone that is increasingly embellished with buzzing crests of electronics, swells of feedback, and ominous metallic washes that sound like processed cymbals.  Unexpectedly, it is Julia Kent (apparently a member of Blind Cave Salamander at the time) who emerges as the most prominent and distinctive performer, as her mournful cello melodies give each its piece its own shape and feel.  As a result, "Cabbalism I" is the strongest piece, as Kent opens up with a darkly melancholy melody and is given plenty of space to make her impact.  In "Cabbalism II," she steps forward with an appealingly see-sawing motif, but she rarely lingers in the foreground at all in the new "Cabbalism III."  Notably, however, the third version sounds a lot like the first version might after being sucked through a black hole or something: there are snatches of familiar melody, but they are considerably more subsumed by the simmering electronic chaos around them. That said, while Kent provides much of the structure and most of the album's "hooks," it is Paul Beauchamp's singing saw that seems to be the ensemble's apparent secret weapon, as the real pay-off for each piece is a passage where Cabbalism unexpectedly blossoms into an understated rapture of lilting, fluttering, and swooping notes.  It's a lot like a fireworks display with no explosions at all, but an unexpectedly slow and beautiful descent of burning embers.

If Cabbalism has any significant flaws, they are highly subjective and mostly related to what it is not.  For example, it is not Soliloquy for Lilith Redux nor does it particularly sound recognizably like anything that might have sprung from the mind of Steven Stapleton.  Another potential issue is that the new inclusion of "Cabbalism III" does not add much to the album other than increased duration: it is now three very similar variations on a theme rather than just two.  That should not come as a surprise though: if "Cabbalism III" were a masterpiece, Potter and Stapleton would obviously not have omitted it from the original release.  That said, however, the added duration is actually quite welcome, as Cabbalism was already a deep and immersive experience and now it is even deeper and more immersive.  As far as I am concerned, much more of a good thing is almost as satisfying as a better album might have been.  More importantly, when stripped of any NWW-related expectations and taken solely on its own terms, Cabbalism is quite an excellent drone album: it may not nearly be as gleefully deranged and surrealistic as any of Stapleton's other recent work, but the consolation prize is that it is still a hell of a lot more complex, unconventional, and unpredictable than most similar fare.

• I
• II
• III

 

14 November 2010

Creaig Dunton

Albums and Singles

Clocking in at a meager 20 minutes, these two tracks mix ambience, noise, and traditional instrumentation into a fog that is sparse, yet complex, and has moments of arid beauty as well as dark, sinister passages. More than a few times this young composer reminded me of some of Organum's best moments, which is a massive compliment.

Standard Form

"Dissonant Distances" is a slow build into glassy feedback, with an organic ambience under it that succumbs to harsher tones throughout.It's a complex piece that is restrained and pensive throughout, with a darker turn towards the end.It is this piece especially that shows Dunn’s ability to create sounds that move and develop, but within a structured framework to never feel aimless or random.

"Senium III" begins with church-like bell tones, heavily reverberated and echoed into a sparse, but regal sound.The tone and drama that’s conveyed in this really simple composition really reminded me of Jackman’s recent work, specifically the "holy" trinity of Sanctus, Omega and Amen from recent years.The spiritual quality of these tones is very similar, though here there is more development and variation than on those Organum discs.

Kyle Bobby Dunn is a relatively new name in this scene, but already he shows a strong ear for drama and tension within the world of sound.This EP is a great example and he brings along the cold, overcast terrain of his childhood home with it.There’s drama, mystery, tension, and beauty contained herein, which is pretty impressive considering the small scale of this release.

14 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

While Jenks Miller has his hand in a multitude of Chapel Hill bands, his Tony Iommi meets Tony Conrad metal project Horseback has received the most notoriety as of late. However, on this collaboration with the relatively new drone composer Nicholas Szczpanik, there isn't a riff to be found. Instead the two weave together seamlessly expansive ranges of tonal and textural sound into an album that travels through the darkness and into the light multiple times.

Small Doses

Both artists are often labeled "drone" by critics and writers, with Miller putting his own spin on Sunn O)))'s monolithic riffing, and Szczpanik creating expansive, sparse tonal works that aren't afraid to drift into dissonant noise territory.I would argue that this description is too simplistic based upon this album, however.While certain tones and motifs are allowed to stretch out for long periods, such as the tinnitus-inducing frequencies of "A Private Life," or repetitive church melodies of "White Light," there is always a large amount of movement and variation going on around them, such as the digital music box melodies and radio static crunch of the former.

"White Light" goes even further, shaping raw noises into icy winds, coupled with a slow and simple ritualistic drum beat.The sound eventually explodes into full on walls of harsh noise, but paired with a symphonic wall of synths to wonderful effect.This combination of beautiful tone with ugly noise also defines the closer, "Cranberry Sauce," which is initially soaring, high pitched shimmering textures and light, warm drones, but eventually met with an undercurrent of static that soon rises to an equal volume level, putting the pastoral ambient tones with violent wall noise, almost symbolizing light versus dark, or good versus evil.For most of the piece the two stay on equal footing, but a blast of noise dominates the last few seconds before the album’s abrupt ending.So, dark triumphs over light at the last second…that's rather metal.

Other pieces are less dramatic and more pensive, meditative studies upon sound."Sin Killers" is all submerged screeches and squelches over hollow, echoed rattles and buzzing drones with dark organ swells."Ossuary Dub" is more glacial rather than dark, with cold electronic walls of sound matched with echoed and processed terse percussion.I'm assuming the title is a nod to one of the remixes on Painkiller's Execution Ground set from the mid '90s, and while they're attempting little of the grindcore blast jazz from that album, the music feels like it could definitely be inspired by the deconstructed, icy remix the track is named for.

With as much as I write about albums in the genre, "drone" and "minimalist" (in the modern sense) is really past the point of saturation.With so many projects, especially from the metal side of the world trying to carve out their place, it becomes hard to separate the cream from the crap.This definitely rises to the top, however, because of both its actual sonic components and its powerfully effective composition.The minimalism is more in the classic sense, and the structures of each piece avoid the pitfall of simply repeating the same sound for long periods.American Gothic is a brilliant collaboration and worthy of being hoisted into the top experimental albums of the year, easily.

samples:

• Sin Killers
• Ossuary Dub
• Cranberry Sauce

 

 

14 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Now somewhere in the realms of prog/psych/metal/whatever, at one point Norway's Motopsycho were among the crop of potential "next big things" in a post-Nirvana world, creating music that wasn't far removed from the "alternative" scene that would soon be exploited and plundered to give us the likes of Nickleback and the existence of "nu-metal". Even then, however, there was a streak of weirdness that the band would later tap into more deeply, and on the double CD/triple LP Timothy's Monster, the band perfectly balanced catchy rock with bizarre outbursts. Long a cult favorite, this set reproduces the original album in its entirety (the US and UK versions edited the longer pieces to make it fit on a single disc), with an unreleased "first draft" of the album, and a disc full of outtakes/B-sides. It’s a lot to digest, but even for the casual fan, it's a strong set.

Rune Grammofon

It's hard to not feel a bit of nostalgia when listening to this album, even though I wasn’t aware of it when it first appeared.I was a freshman in high school when it initially came out, and while I was absorbed into the world of second generation industrial music, I was still hearing and appreciating a lot of the "alternative rock" that defined 120 Minutes and other video shows.Timothy's Monster has a lot of these sounds…the jangly guitars, the overdriven bass, sharp drum tunings, etc., but never does it feel dated or derivative, there are simply too many brilliantly weird moments to prevent that. For example:on a quick listen "A Shrug & A Fistful" sounds like conventional alternative pop, but upon closer inspection, the harsh white noise blasts, guitar abuse and banjo parts clearly keep it strange."Kill Some Day" is like the surging, anthem-like chorus of a song held in statis for the full duration:it mostly keeps the heavy, chugging sound for its full seven minute duration."On My Pillow" even channels some of Pavement's slower, lurching songs without the intentional amateur sound and with the addition of some Theremin.

The longer tracks bring this out even more:the ten minute "Giftland" opens with abstract noise, then slowly becomes shaped into a dramatic, developing track with dual drummers, each one hard panned into a separate channel and later includes cinematic string flourishes, all building to a loud crescendo and then quietly closing out."The Wheel" is mostly propelled by an organ/bass sound that also explodes dramatically, but for the latter portion is subjected to heavy effects and processing to make the sound even more unconventional than it started with.

The unreleased "first edition" of the album that constitutes disc three feels like a dry run or demo version of what was finally released, and includes some tracks that were left as B-sides or never heard from again.For the material that appeared on the final release, there aren't significant differences:"Leave It Like That" has a thinner sound and a little less drama overall, and "A Shrug & A Fistful" has some hard panned guitar and a stop/start structure that wasn’t as prominent in the final version.The tracks that never were heard from again make sense being excised in the end though, "On The Toad Again" is a plodding screamfest that marries old school Sabbath to '90s grunge metal, but actually works in a fun sort of way, but would be completely out of place on the album.The same for the appropriately titled "Very 90's, Very Aware," which also leans more into rapid fire drums and grungy bass, its simplicity is its weakest spot and makes it far less engaging than most of the other material here.

The final disc comprises b-sides and outtakes from the album, and it is what would be expected, consisting of odd experiments that sometimes work, and sometimes don’t.The metal tendencies are on display once again with "Seethe," but with the tight, rudimentary rhythmic guitar parts it resembles Psalm 69-era Ministry, which I personally think is a good thing."Jr" is at its core a song that would have been appropriate on the album, but is heavily muffled and filtered to the point it sounds like it’s playing on a shitty boom box next door."Mr. Butterclut Goes To The Fair, Meets The Viscount, And That's Where We Leave Him At The End of This Episode…" has a title that's longer than the song itself, but is an odd piece of soundtracky material that could be the backing for a radio play that is bizarrely brilliant.The closing "Sonnyboy Gaybar" also is a goofy gem, written five minutes before it was recorded live.It's a Norwegian take on American country/bluegrass, and is as strange as one would expect.

At first I was suspicious how this set would appeal to the "average" listener.Often these deluxe expanded reissues are packed with subtle remixes or demos that are interesting the first time they’re heard, and then ignored afterward.This is an exception to that rule, because even people who are hearing this album for the first time can appreciate the supplemental material.A few of the tracks on disc three are hard to differentiate from their final versions, but those are few and far between.There's a lot of material to take in here, but it’s almost all compelling, and even those occasional missteps in the bonus material aren’t nearly as bad as other band’s unheard stuff.It might be a bit much to play in one sitting, but none of these discs are stinkers.

samples:

• Giftland
• Sungravy (First Version)
• Sonnyboy Gaybar

 

14 November 2010

Duncan Edwards

Albums and Singles

This hypnotic listening experience is as pleasantly soporific and gently gritty as if Mazzy Star had been produced by Alex Chilton.

 

Soft Abuse

The ramshackle-sounding "Pure" probably highlights the group's sonic ambition as well as any song here, with Clark Griffin's languid, sparkling, guitar lines and the haunting, if slightly incomprehensible, voice of Wednesday Knudsen nicely separated from a percussive strum of acoustic guitar resembling a "treated" tambourine.

Griffin wisely has a contrasting abrasive tone on other tracks and the duo's sound is augmented here and there with drum machine, flute, and use of echo. Knudsen sings in French on two or three songs including the spacious cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Laisse Tomber les Filles" which builds into a weird chant with an instrumental break of squeaks somewhat similar to how it might sound if a box of activated Buddha Machines were attacked by sleepy kittens. I'm not sure if Pigeons can pull this gorgeous, urban- folk mysticism off in concert but they are currently playing dates on both US coasts, and down into Florida, Louisiana and Texas.

14 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

Before Sublime Frequencies began their plunge into the gritty and forgotten corners of global music, there was Pat Conte, a curmudgeonly postal employee and WFMU DJ from Long Island with a basement full of 78s. In the '90s, he curated an impressive series of rather unusual compilations named after an enigmatic and semi-legendary collection of photographs published in the 1930s. This is the second volume in the well-deserved vinyl reissue of the series and it is everything I could hope for: an achievement made even more remarkable by the fact that Conte had never traveled further than Canada when it was originally issued.

Yazoo/Outernational

Given the absurd scope of this double-album (two decades, the entire world), it should come as no surprise that the material assembled is eclectic in the extreme.Conte did not get mired down in unifying themes or in-depth examinations of any particular culture. He just took all of his best finds from the period and put them on an album with some brief background information.It's an approach that works extremely well, as these songs are almost invariably excellent, surprising, or both.It is not often that a Puerto Rican Christmas song can gracefully appear in company with a devotional hymn to Krishna or an ode to the chastity of Kazakhstan's young women, but Conte's "kitchen sink" celebration of all things exotic and forgotten has an internal logic that suits the material just fine.Pat applied a similar approach to his cryptic and colorful liner notes, treating quotes from Charles Darwin, conductor Leopold Stokowski, some random Eskimo, and Pindar ("All things hateful to Zeus in the earth and sea tremble at the sound of music.") with equal gravity.

Conte's taste and judgment are pretty unerring throughout these 23 songs, as even the pieces that I didn't particularly like (a French bagpipe dance, for example) tended to be either compelling or unlike anything else that I have heard before.I found two string-based Greek pieces to be especially revelatory and haunting (even before I read their morbid descriptions): both A. Kostis's finger-picked tale of a school fire and Rita Abatzi's kanonaki lament about being buried and forgotten sound impossibly sad and remarkably contemporary.It is apparently not a big leap from 1930s Greece to current Eastern- and raga-tinged guitar music at all— and those two artists definitely didn't leave much room for any improvement.More importantly, I had absolutely no idea before last week that I would ever have any interest in Greek traditional music and now that I do, I suspect I will have a very frustrating time finding more of it (especially this good).It is difficult to understate how far ahead of the curve Conte was in his efforts to unearth amazing and hopelessly obscure music from the distant past and how brilliantly he succeeded.Anyone with a taste for the exotic and esoteric will find a lot to enjoy here, and probably even find at least one artist to become mildly (or unhealthily) obsessed by.

Pat devoted decades to dusty scavenging, endless archiving, and near-impossible research to realize this project and it shows.Zeus would not find this hateful.

Samples:

• Rita Abatzi, "Prepei Na Skeptetai Kaneis"
• Cuartetto Iberia, "Zacataque"
• A. Kostis, "Kaike Ena Sholio"

14 November 2010

Administrator

Albums and Singles

When it was first released in 1959, Alan Lomax described this album as "the wistful and tender magic of the young girl that is beyond art." Obviously, Lomax was a bit impartial since they had just completed an exhaustive song-collecting journey through the American South together, but it is impossible to think of a more apt description. Collins' appeal has always been the unwavering simplicity and purity that she brings to the well-worn songs that she loves, traits that are just as timeless and trend-proof as any traditional melody. Sweet England is not the crowning achievement of Shirley's influential discography, but its reissue makes its clear that her vision was firmly in place from the very beginning and that the passage of five decades has done little to blunt its impact.

Fledg'ling

Sweet England was recorded in a whirlwind two-day session in a house way back in 1958, when Shirley was just 22 years old.The session was a farewell present of sorts from Lomax, who was just about to head back to the US for yet another long-term song-scavenging expedition.At the time of the recording, Collins was still a bit new to the banjo, so a few other musicians were enlisted to back her.Despite Shirley's self-deprecating liner notes suggesting that the whole thing happened quite a bit sooner than she would have liked, she nevertheless managed to finish a whopping 37 songs over those 48 hours (the same session also produced the somewhat superior False True Love).There is definitely some justification for Collins' lukewarm enthusiasm, given how much she ultimately evolved, but both albums yielded some absolutely beautiful work and made an enormous impact on the nascent English folk scene, as instrumental accompaniment for folk music had yet to fully come into vogue.

Of course, the albums for which Collins is most revered came a bit later, such as her collaborations with her sister Dolly, Anthems in Eden, or Folk Routes, New Routes, but Shirley's voice was still beautiful and uniquely her own even at this early stage.Also, the quality of traditional songs ripe for reinterpretation was just as depthless in 1958 as it would be at any other time.Unfortunately, I am not entirely in love with the song selection on this particular album, as I don't like nonsensical refrains like "hey down, ho down, dare dare down" or comic pig noises– the "lighter, banal songs," as Shirley puts it.Most of the pieces in this vein were ones that Shirley learned from her mother when she was a child, so I can certainly understand their inclusion and their larger importance in the folk music tradition, but they were not fated to remain a part of her repertoire for long.Thankfully, there are also some great lovelorn ballads here that stand among her best work, particularly "Polly Vaughn" and "Barbara Allen."

Despite the fact that Collins was not quite at the height of her powers at this stage, I am quite fond of this "me and a banjo" era, as I feel that working with an entire band diluted her impact a bit.Anyone that feels similarly about Collins' oeuvre will certainly find some striking and intimate "singles" and alternative versions of later re-workings here to get excited about (like I did), but the curious should probably go elsewhere first.Fountain of Snow seems like probably the best overview for my taste, but every phase of her career has some wonders to offer.

Samples:

• Turpin Hero
• Barbara Allen
• Charlie