Being thankful for an earful.
Brand new music by Marie Davidson, Niecy Blues (feat. Joy Guidry), CEL, Marisa Anderson and Luke Schneider, Stina Stjern, Carmen Villain, Murcof, A Lily, and Far Golden Pavilions, with music from the vaults by Tomaga, Ozzobia, Jan Jelinek.
Sushi photo by Lindsay.
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The resultant electronic influenceis so heavy that the instrumentation is barely categorizable as "hiphop"—rapid fire hi hats slogging through dense but pedestrian soundslast heard on the Doom soundtrack alternating with somethingKraftwerk might have done on the Euro club scene had they worked 30years later (maybe the title is relevant, or deliberatelymisconceiving?). The lyrics are at their core well done. Intelligentenough, as complex couplets ("to the detriment of many a derelict/ wecome to inject a bit of intellectual impulse/ set to a beat to offsetthe inimical complaints of the ignorant"), and cerebral syllogisms flyby the ears at a frenetic pace. Being bombarded by heavily distortedvoices waxing futuristic over the fate of humanity provies a bit ofironic relief too. But the combination of heavy effects and light-speedpace make the lyrics, a key component of any rap record, all butindecipherable. The instrumentation makes Zwarte Achtegrond toogratingly artificial for a hip hop aficionado, and the dizzinglydifficult rapping will distract all but the most dedicated electronichead, potentially alienating both sides of the would-be crossover. Theformula clicks just once, with "Get the Signal," a fast paced energeticthumper most notable for its simplicity. On the whole Lab Waste seemsto have forgotten an essential ingredient in any hip-hop album,unforgivable if they do portend to have a "Zwarte Achtegrond":there's no soul. Put together with double clicks, and without a singleturntable, the album lacks nearly all vestiges of human involvement, avital element of the hip hop aesthetic. The feel is cold anddisconnected, which is probably the point. As a bleak concept albumbemoaning the future, then, Zwarte Achtegrond might succeed onsome level, but it's not enough to save it from being a tedious genreexperiment, mired in confused mediocrity. samples:
A record comprised of tencover songs, nine of which revisit some of Daniel's favorite moments inthe annals of English punk rock and American hardcore, transformingtwo-minute angry screeds into sleazy, hedonistic electro-disco. Whileit's fairly obvious that Daniel has retained much of his affection forthis music from his youth spent in the Louisville, Kentucky hardcorepunk scene, it's equally obvious that Daniel is aware that he isessentially negating the substance of punk and hardcore protest bygrafting the lyrics onto hyper-sexualized, druggy dance music. MinorThreat's "Out Of Step" remains a classically explicit statement ofpurpose for the straight edge DC hardcore movement, but SPT's versioncompletely castrates the original's ascetic stance, adding layers ofsampled sex moans and laughable snippets from a "Stop Smoking in 30Days" LP. The central question posed by Do You Want New Waveappears to be this: Can these fiercely political songs be takenseriously when they can be so easily stripped of meaning?Anti-capitalism and anarchism abound on the album, with People Like Us'Vicki Bennett providing vocals for a version of Crass' "Do They Us aLiving?" from the epochal Feeding of the 5000 that sounds likeits being covered by The Normal. But the famously confrontationaljeremiad, juxtaposed with digitized whipcracks and squelching synths,ends up in the realm of the absurd, a series of hopelessly radicalizedleft-wing rants that seem downright quaint in the age of prosperity andTony Blair. It seems clear that Drew Daniel's intention is to have thelistener question the political substance of these songs, as he slylydisarms them of their power by transforming them into slick dance clubfodder for a generation that can't be bothered to think. In fact, itmay have been SPT's plan all along to force us to think about thesedecades-old blasts of political aggression, and by removing the loud,primitive noise guitar and chaotic pummeling, the listener receives noassistance and must take the lyrics on their own terms. This isespecially effective on more obscure cuts like the mashup ofRudimentary Peni's "Media Person" (which Daniel mistakenly renames"Media Friend") and "V.S.B.," transforming RP's savagely desolategoth-punk into a relentlessly hypnotic MDMA groove that matches JeremyScott's vocal delivery perfectly. The deliciously blasphemous "Poet'sConfession" from electro-punks Nervous Gender ("Jesus was a cocksuckingJew from Galilee/Jesus was just like me/A homosexual nymphomaniac") isturned into a dark, queasy acid rave-up worthy of LSD-era Coil,serving only to intensify the song's already terrifying nihilism.Daniel has a good time turning The Angry Samoans' miniature homophobicdiatribe "Homo-sexual" into a high-velocity rip-roaring sing-along forrivetheads, making it even more difficult to figure whether or not theoriginal's intolerant hate-mongering was meant to be satire. Like anygood punk album, SPT's Do You Want New Wave clocks in at a slim35 minutes, but it doesn't waste a second, turning what should havebeen a patently ridiculous concept into an incredibly, infectiouslyentertaining album. samples:
With 37 short tracks, this 13th installment in the ongoing Carnival Folklore Resurrectionseries has a much more cut-up feel than the two disc set, also createdfor radio, which preceded it. As a critique of the onslaught of quicklychanging imagery that defines America 2004, this program succeeds inpointing out the depths of absurdity to which said culture has sunk.This is best exemplified by "Only In America inc.," which consists of ahilarious answering machine message left by a young entrepreneur for"Mr. Rockefeller." The young go-getter asks if Rockefeller will providehalf a million dollars to help him start up a company whose solefunction is to send phony bills to corporations, on the assumption thatsome of them will pay these "bills" without researching their validity.Alan Bishop's charming/fearsome "Uncle Jim" character makes severalappearances during this set. His free associated ranting is highlyenjoyable, as his interjections are transmitted in several shortbursts. This is an improvement on the previous volume, which devotedthree ten minute tracks to his verbal antics. Here his demeanor is likethat of a radio announcer, except he interrupts the program to presentfacts about cannibalism and make wise-crackin' boasts that oddly oftenreference baseball ("I'll crack yer skull with a greazy spitter/walkthe pitcher/strike out the lead-off hitter"). There is also muchworthwhile music hidden among the skits, radio collages and monologues."Very Middle East" sees the group in pseudo-ethnic mode, theirguitar-bass-drums lineup appropriating melodies discovered whiletravelling in Far East Asia. "Anvils Keep Fallin'" is exactly theparody of the BJ Thomas classic that one would hope it is upon readingthe title. "Bangalore Porch Lights" sounds like a recording of a banjoplayer searching for a melody he heard in a dream. "EvasivePrescription" and "Dark Eyes" are fine examples of the kind of mangledjazz/rock hybrid Sun City Girls are known for delivering live. During"Evasive Prescription" in particular they astound with their talent forcollectively stopping on a dime during sections of free improvisation.Although it has been suggested that they release too much material thatnever should have left the practice room, Sun City Girls should beapplauded for the sheer range of material they produce. I'd rather hearthe failed experiments among their gems than the perfected output ofcountless less daring outfits. - 
Turntablism courtesy of his son Casey is alsoincorporated, and while far short of anything DJ Shadow would put hisname on, it is the final nudge that pushes Real Gone'ssound from the eccentric to the borderline insane. Such tomfoolery attimes threatens to derail the album, but Waits and his trademark gravelthroat keeps Real Gone if not grounded at least focused.Sometimes a mere croak, Waits's war-weary pipes conjure up images oflate nights, hard drink and one carton of Marlboro Reds too many, whilesubtly revealing the true star of Real Gone, and indeed the keyto Waits's longevity: his skill as a songwriter. When mated to theyarns Waits is able to spin in the span of three to five minutes, themanic music becomes sublime. Waits matches tribal drumming andprimitive chanting to make an anti-jingoism anthem: "The sun is up theworld is flat/ Damn good address for a rat/ The smell of blood/ TheDrone of flies/ You know what to do if/ The baby cries/ HOIST THATRAG!" Waits's longstanding to downtrodden has not wavered at all, fromthe unlucky lover with "Green Grass" ("Lay your head where my heartused to be/ Hold the earth above me/ Lay down in the green grass/Remember when you loved me") to the unfortunate accessory on "Don't Gointo that Barn." His ability to create characters and tell compellingstories has not lost any of its uncanny power, as is evident on "How'sIt Gonna End": "There's a killer and he's coming/ Thru the rye/ Butmaybe he's the Father/ Of that lost little girl/ It's hard to tell inthis light." Waits does overdo things at times:- "Sins of the Father"is an egregious overindulgence, boring, preachy and tortuously long atnearly eleven minutes. The opening track, "Top of the Hill," is littlemore than a vehicle for Waits's newfound instrumentation choices, asthe lyrics are nothing more than a string of non sequitirs, madetolerable only by the fun Waits has with the turntables and beatboxing.On "Clang Boom Steam," Waits felt the need to imitate orally what couldbe either a steel foundry or a busy railway yard, with, just as thetitle suggests, clangs, booms, and hisses from his mouth, a pointlessmeandering that is wildly out of step with the rest of the album. Butit doesn't matter, as Waits does as he pleases, and whether it'sthrough luck, ability or something more sinister ("I'm not able, I'mjust Cain") he releases one of 2004's most compelling albums. - 
This San Francisco group released a pretty nifty EP lastyear called Don't Stop,which not only introduced their particular brand of dub-influencedpostpunk instrumentalism, but also featured an ace remix by The SoftPink Truth. "Don't Stop" became a minor underground sensation becauseof its rubbery, melodic basslines and dense layers of digitallyprocessed percussion. They came on sort of like a low-rent PiL withless noise and more dub. It was nothing earth shattering, to be sure,but it was eminently listenable, and seemed to suggest that the bandmight be capable of some grand things in the future. Their debutfull-length Kling Klang, shows that there was a lot more where"Don't Stop" came from. And that's the problem, really. They repeat theformula of "Don't Stop" with almost zero variation across 11 tracks.Though the album is only about 40 minutes long, it feels four hourslong. Kling Klang achieves a kind of bland uniformity of soundthat evidences a band unwilling to take risks or experiment with theformula that has garnered them critical praise. In the end, it comesdown to four white guys making passable instrumental dub with DFA-styledance rhythms and the odd echoplexed shout. Tussle obviously wantcritics to think they are influenced by krautrock, by creatinginterminably repetitive grooves and naming their album in tribute toKraftwerk. However, their connection to krautrock is all style and nosubstance, and other reviewers would be advised to steer clear of suchlazy associations. I have a feeling their live show might come off alittle better, as it reportedly features trippy video projections, butthis album is tedious. It's hard to even pick one song and talk aboutits relative merits, because all the tracks seem to meld into oneanother and form one giant, shapeless mass. Perhaps I'm being unfair,as Tussle are certainly a talented group of guys, and they are quitegood at doing what they do. The problem is that they aim a little toolow. If you turned this album on at a party, it would quickly fade intoa non-threatening white noise background, which could either be a goodthing or a bad thing, depending on your tastes. For myself, I prefermusic that engages me a bit more intensely. samples:
This particular musical collective hails from the PacificNorthwest, and has close ties to the Sun City Girls; both Alan Bishopand Charlie Gocher make guest appearances, and the album is released onSCG's own Abduction label. Like a lot of bands lazily being lumped inunder the heading of New Weird America, MMOB focus on freeimprovisation and play with the idea of a hippie drum circle, movingbetween areas of dissonance and chaos, to long passages of cohesiveensemble playing. The Visible Sign of the Invisible Ordercomes in 15 separate tracks that have been joined together into onelong, amorphous musical ritual. And the emphasis here is on ritual,with much of the music drawing from a Westerner's conception of Middleand Far Eastern ceremonial musical forms, from Moroccan joujouka toJapanese taiko, from the most hidden Sufi order to the most profane andobvious ethnological forgeries. Like much of SCG's best work, there isno distinction made between high and low art here, and a shamblingsense of joyous group improvisation negates any sense of that sleazycultural imperialism often found in the "World Music" section of yourlocal record store. MMOB achieves a righteous sense of psychedelic,ritualized improvisation that is dynamic, hypnotic and substantive, asif the musicians on Paradieswarts Duul had decided to channelthe entire Sublime Frequencies catalog into one hour-longimprovisation. Schuller and the collective (which includes thesuperlative Eyvind Kang on electric violin) attack a multitude ofinstruments, largely percussive in nature, with all players utilizingtheir voices in a nonverbal, intuitively Eastern way. Though I doubtany of the mantric recitations and chanting found on the recordrepresent anything other than meaningless glossolalia, the MMOB areincredibly good at building tension and drama with their meldingvoices, creating an invisible ritual chamber in which the music exists.Much of this music was recorded outdoors, with the coastal and interiorforest acoustics lending an ancient, timeless quality to the music.Scattered among the 15 tracks are several well-placed moments ofclimactic explosiveness, most notably on the slyly named "Access ofEvil," which reaches a hair-raising crescendo of ululations andmonolithic tribal percussion. "Pillow of Green Light" apparentlyattempts to recreate the Dogon tribe's creation myth, with aterrifyingly chaotic swirl of noise and electronics, the soundtrack ofa pre-Babylonian alien abduction deep in the heart of Africa. Therepetitive firing of a 9mm firearm on "Custody's Last Battle/SecretWars" evokes the slaughter of Native Americans, forging a secret jihad.The album ends with absolutely lovely "Circular and Made of the Earth,"which combines high-lonesome steel guitar (or is it sitar?) with femalevocals, floating on a rich backdrop of deep, reverberating aums andharmonic drones. My only complaint with this album is the botchedpackaging job, piss-poor four-color process having rendered the coverphoto and liner notes completely unintelligible. Musically, however,the MMOB have created a true masterpiece, one that entirely transcendsthe collective's unfortunate choice of name. 
Released in 1972, Judee Sill's second album is very much in the same mold as her debut. However, for this, Sill took greater control over the production and orchestral arrangements as David Geffen granting her complete artistic control. The result is an album full of arrangements that are a closer match with her cosmic lyrics—celestial vocal harmonies, baroque horns and church organ, shades of gospel music and the ever-present vocal multitracking that is Judee's trademark.
More occult and religious imagery again, with a new thread of directness and honesty only hinted at in her first album: "I've been looking for someone/Who sells truth by the pound/Then I saw the dealer and his friend arrive/But their gifts looked grim/Now I'm tired of hanging on...Beautiful pearl, o when will you reappear?" The yearning for spiritual cleansing and reawakening is palpable throughout Heart Food, which despite its Chicken Soup for the Soul title, is nothing less than a cry to heaven from the darkest depths of hell. It's an absolutely remarkable album, and one that, if there were any justice in the world, would be mentioned at least as often as critically-acclaimed mediocrities like Carole King's Tapestry or Joni Mitchell's Court and Spark. In "The Phoenix," Judee prays for salvation and rebirth in the midst of an eschatological nightmare: "On phosphorous wings the phoenix floated/The fires froze and the sea was hushed/And when I tried to speak, the sun imploded/And the ware will wait in my guts/Till the devil bites the dust." I don't think I'll ever get tired of the odd paradox of these songs, with lyrics worthy of David Tibet's most apocalyptic nightmares coexisting with muted easy listening-style arrangements for guitar, piano and strings. Heart Food's finest moment comes with the final track, the seven-minute "The Donor," in which Judee Sill builds a stunning choir of layered voices singing the Kyrie Eleison, transforming the liturgical hymn into a haunting, ritualistic call for mercy from a cruel and arbitrary God. After a long silence, the album oddly concludes with a brief Irish jig. Heart Food was Judee's swan song to the world, as the album again failed to ignite the interest of the public, and she dropped out of society, disappearing into an underworld of drugs and prostitution, only resurfacing with the news of her death from a heroin overdose in 1979.
The 1970s was the decade of the singer-songwriter: a golden age in which anyone with passable guitar skills, decent vocal ability and a handful of good songs could land a recording contract. But just as in every other era in popular music, the most original artists tended to be largely ignored in favor of easily digestible, crowd-pleasing pap. In a decade in which Joni Mitchell and James Taylor were selling out football stadiums, an artist like Judee Sill had no chance.
Sure, Judee had the same MOR production values and soulful twang as a Carole King or a Carly Simon. She had the same ability to pen honest, heartfelt lyrics that spoke to the universal human condition. Sure, her debut album was produced by Graham Nash and Bob Harris (her ex-husband and the producer of Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon). And yes, she was discovered by David Geffen and signed to the Asylum label, home to Mitchell and scores of other successful singer-songwriters. However, she also had a penchant for complex occult religious symbolism and a melancholy streak that could become downright depressing. She also struggled with a lifelong heroin addiction, a fact she never shied away from in her lyrics. Her songs were about yearning, romantic or spiritual, often both in one song. Judee navigated a wholly unique lyrical world full of angels and prophets in the shape of children, messiahs and demons in the shape of ex-lovers, and God and Satan as ever-present influences in her life. On her solitary radio hit "Jesus Was a Cross Maker," she resurrects a familiar Gnostic idea, comparing Jesus to Satan and vice-versa, pointing out the essentially enigmatic nature of both good and evil, and the hedonistic call of both. It's frankly not surprising that Judee Sill's music never caught on with a bigger audience, considering lyrics like these: "Once I heard a serpent remark/'If you try to evoke the spark/You can fly through the dark/With a red midnight raven/To rule the battleground'/So I drew my sword and got ready/But the lamb ran away with the crown." All of this coexisting with seemingly innocuous 70s folk production: warmly resonant nylon strings, gentle orchestral fills and the odd flourish of flute or clarinet. Adding to the strangeness, Judee's voice is almost always heavily filtered, fed through several doublers, triplers and harmonizers, lending an oddly psychedelic plasticity to her deceptively pastoral songs. Judee Sill is an incredible debut album, one that deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation of listeners. For years, it's been impossible to find this album or it's follow-up Heart Food outside of expensive Japanese bootlegs of questionable pedigree, or the super-expensive Rhino Handmade CD editions that came out earlier this year. Thankfully, 4 Men With Beards, a specialty vinyl reissue label out of San Francisco, has rectified this situation with a pair of reasonably priced vinyl reissues presented exactly as the original albums were upon their initial release, right down to Judee's personal message to the listener: "May you savor each word like a raspberry."
Tigersushi is obviously trying to exceed the benchmark they set for
themselves with last year's Miyage mix orchestrated by vegan DJ collective K.I.M. This double-disc mix is billed as the second volume in the How To Kill The DJ series, and is by far the most schizophrenic, eclectic and downright random collection of tunes ever presented under the pretext of a continuous DJ mix. The first volume was a relatively tame affair mixed by Ivan Smagghe, containing a standard cross-section of danceable material drawn from vintage 80s sides, with a full complement of newer electroclash and dancepunk material.
Part Two, as conceived by DJ Optimo, takes a completely different tactic, preferring sheer volume and eclecticism to any notion of consistency. His bizarre behemoth of a DJ mix fuses together close to 70 tracks from a myriad different styles all over the musical map—from 70s psychedelic funk and rock to 80s Detroit techno, from leftfield disco to completely tangential trips into outsider, avant-garde and industrial noise music. On this particular voyage, it's not at all surprising to hear Soft Cell's "Sex Dwarf" rubbing shoulders with Carl Craig's "Demented Drums," or later to hear Gang of Four's "Damaged Goods" fade out into The Langley Schools Music Project's version of "Good Vibrations" (for the uninitiated, the LSMP is a gymnasium full of Canadian grade school kids playing gamelan percussion and singing guileless versions of famous pop songs).
Because of the sheer number and variety of songs selected for the mix, Optimo does not let any track play for very long, editing most down to one or two minutes, and endeavors seamless transitions between each, even when attempting something insane like fusing a mashup of Akufen and Monte Cazazza to a mashup of Nurse With Wound's "Two Shaves and Shine" with Blondie's "Atomic." I'm aware that this sounds completely fucking insane on paper, but it somehow succeeds. If it's not very satisfying in the sense of a dance-friendly party mix, it does appeal on a purely intellectual level, as hidden connections are revealed between disparate strands of music that might have been thought nonexistent. For all of my DJ ambitions, for instance, I never would have thought of gluing the bubbly tropicalia of Os Mutantes' "A Minha Menina" to Pablo's classic "Cissy Strut," but it sounds amazing.
The second disc, entitled Espacio for no apparent reason, forgoes the short-attention-span mixdown of the first disc in favor of letting each song play out in its entirety. As such, it's more of a "chillout" disc than the first, as thee infinite beat is not kept in perpetual motion, and tracks such as the Angelo Badalamenti theme to David Lynch's "Mullholland Drive" or Arthur Russell's beatless voice-and-cello "Another Thought" could by no stretch of the imagination considered dance songs. Kudos to Optimo for including such excellent, if completely random selections as Sun City Girl's "Opium Den" and The Only Ones "Another Girl, Another Planet" on the same disc. For sheer eclecticism and varied musical taste, Optimo's How To Kill The DJ Part Two is the one to beat, although beyond the initial novelty, I'm not sure what particular use it has for the average listener.
albums from the British progressive folk scene of theearly 1970s. Right up there with classics like Comus' First Utterance and Simon Finn's Pass the Distance, Jan Dukes De Grey's 1971 LP Mice and Rats in the Loftis a brilliant work of psychedelic folk with a seething undercurrent ofmalevolence. Apparently having learned a lesson from the artistic andcommercial failure of their first LP, 1970's Sorcerers on theNova label, the duo of Derek Noy and Michael Bairstow enlisted drummerDenis Conlan, and quickly disposed of all notions of pop songcraft towhich they might have initially aspired. Instead, they recorded thedistinctly uncommercial 19-minute sidelong "Sun Symphonica," abreathtaking, dynamic work of epic genius, fusing together at leastfive separate musical movements into an unfolding narrative that beginswith a hippie paean to the sun and proceeds through progressivelydarker and more twisted realms. The instrumental bridges arebrilliantly conceived, referencing the medieval idiom popular inBritish folk of this period, but impregnating it with an energy thatsmolders with intensity and immediacy. Effortlessly wielding 12-stringguitar, violin, cello, flute, clarinet, recorder, harmonica and adizzying assortment of percussion, the trio plays with all the poise ofan experienced jazz ensemble, but produces something altogether heavierand more psychedelic, as if Amon Düül II had restricted themselves toacoustic instruments and decided to compose a soundtrack to The Wicker Man.As the "Sun Symphonica" trudges on through its many moods and phases,it gradually becomes clear that a distinctly pagan formula is at work,and the solar imagery is quickly eclipsed by its more primordialcounterpart: the devil in the form of dead, bloated corpses coveredwith maggots rotting under the intense noonday sun. By the 15-minutemark, the track is a swirling maelstrom of simmering instrumentalfragments flying around the stereo channels in a lunatic dance, as the"sunshine" mantra returns once more, where in a savage irony it hasbeen transformed into a terrifying hex. Unfortunately, the album neveragain reaches the maniacal heights of Side A, but where it does go isnearly as fascinating. "Call of the Wild" utilizes the voices of allthree band members to create dizzying vocal harmonies in a song whichcelebrates the savage nature of man, and advocates the expression ofinner, suppressed primalisms. By the halfway mark, the song experiencesa radical break with structure and turns into a seething echo chamberof wicked guitar improvisation. The final track is also by far thestrangest, the eight-minute title track, which creates a hypnoticwhirlpool of electric fuzz guitar over which Derek Noy narrates ingreat detail a ritual human sacrifice with a zeal that would set H.P.Lovecraft's hair on end. Mice and Rats in the Loft is uneasylistening at its finest, and Breathless' first-ever CD reissue does anadmirable job of reproducing the cover art in their foldout digipack.The booklet contains new liner notes by David Tibet, which should comeas no surprise, as the influence of this album can certainly be felt inCurrent 93 efforts such as Thunder Perfect Mind and Tamlin.Anyone interested would be advised to pick up a copy of this limitedreissue before this masterpiece fades back into obscurity once again.
Every year I hope that there will be at least one record that I'll fall in love with. I pine for the kind of record I'll want to put in the player every time I sense that I'm around speakers or a pair of headphones; the kind of record that I'll wear out from constant abuse and wind up buying again and again; the kind of record I want to give everyone I know as a gift for no other special occasion than just being alive. It's rare that such a record comes along and usually at the end of the year I'm left making year-end lists and voting in polls for albums that were great, or fun, or inventive but not quite life-changingly beautiful. There aren't many records that make me want to re-evaluate my beliefs about music and about people, and even fewer that manage to transcend all the mess of a music industry full of empty promise promo sheets and groundswells of hype. Thankfully as the year draws to a crisp wintery close, I've found a record that does. Hope For Agoldensummer hails from the deep south and the music they make together oozes the rustic, porch-swing spirituality that one might expect, but with uncommon grace and warmth. It would be easy to play in cliches and revive the jug band for the Converse and hoodie-wearing indie set, and someone somewhere is no doubt trying to get that to work-but that's not what Hope is about. Principal songwriter and free spirit Claire Campbell anchors the group with a soaring, soulful voice that is comforting even as it's aching. Her sister, Page, harmonizes and occasionally takes the lead with a deep voice so strong yet so nearly ready to break that I find it impossible not to want to sing along just to make sure that the songs keep going. And while the voices and the words are undoubtedly the stars, the accompaniment of cello, slide guitar, accordion, and a simple brushed drum kit is sparse but so incredibly perfect that it makes me wonder how the songs could have been written any other way. Drummer Jamie Shepard's enormous bass drum gives the songs a deep, dusty and hollow heartbeat of a rhythm while the simple glockenspiel melodies and spaghetti western guitars give the otherwise authentic, down home atmosphere a hint of something bigger. This is family-made music, right down to the honest-to-goodness sisters who sit and sing and bring audiences to tears, and it follows in that vividly southern tradition of families gathering around to sing and commiserate and tell stories set to song. Heart of Art is a slow, almost mournful album full of songs about loss and regret and shame and yet it winds up being celebratory in its belief that music is strong enough medicine to cure any ill. Like an album of murder ballads where the only cause of death is a broken heart, the record keeps finding new ways to pull at the deep, recessed, cynical heartstrings until the only way to beat Hope is to join them. When people who never appear to suffer try to craft songs that are uplifting and hopeful, it always seems too glossy and too strong to mean anything. These songs acknowledge the pain and the anger and the hurtful, hateful things that people can do, but somehow the songs carry on, the musicians carry on, and as a listener, I carry on because I believe in where we are all headed. When the whole band sings "we come together/ and we work/ and we fall apart/ I play music because I'm in love with silence and sound," during the triumphant album closer, "Laying Down the Gun," it's impossible to resist the thought, the hope that music really is a magical tonic for all that ails you. I'm finding new songs to fall in love with every time I listen to this record, and new, unexpected moments of clarity and insight. Most of all, I've found the record this year that reaffirms my faith in music, my love for music; it's the record that reconnects me with other people through the simple tradition of song, and for that I'll be forever thankful. 
