Americana – Page 2

LIVE REVIEW: Hayes Peebles at Rockwood Music Hall

Hayes Peebles packed Rockwood Music Hall February 23, where he soothed listeners with his charming vocals and calming aura. Backed by a full band, Peebles showcased his newly released EP Ghosts, and with it, the New York-based singer/songwriter also delivered a much-needed tranquility to the city.

The night was filled with swooning and swaying to Peebles’ laid-back folk music. Peebles has a sound that borders on country in certain songs, with backup “ooh’s” and “aah’s” that could easily be replaced with a “yeehaw.” It’s as Americana as it gets, down to the blue jeans and flannel that Peebles sported onstage.

Peebles creates music that does a remarkable job of dredging up old memories, recalling the feeling of falling in love with someone new, a first heartbreak, a life-changing loss. His tracks are emotional and packed with passion, particularly “Eulogy,” from his new EP. Down-tempo with emotional builds, the cyclical nature of the song perfectly exemplifies the ups and down one goes through after suffering a heart-wrenching loss—one day it feels like everything is getting back to normal only to get hit by the next day, which is full of crushing despair.

He also made his way through other EP singles, “Home,” “Short and Sweet,” and the titular track. “Ghosts” brings it back to simpler times; it’s nostalgic and idyllic, a track made for lingering in the past. To Peebles, the ghosts we know are not always departed loved ones who haunt us, but do live on as the spirits of our memories.

Hayes Peebles’ music will make you yearn for your childhood home, friends, and experiences again. It’s the perfect music to listen to on a chilly fall afternoon—or a warm almost-spring night, packed alongside a bunch of strangers lost in their own memories.

Listen to the Ghosts EP below:

<a href="http://hayespeebles.bandcamp.com/album/ghosts-ep">Ghosts EP by Hayes Peebles</a>

EP REVIEW + VIDEO PREMIERE: Catch Prichard’s “Eskota”

When I first met Sawyer Gebauer – the weighty, valley-low voice behind Catch Prichard – he was called another name. He was in another country, manning a different musical project (the melancholy Europe-based Brittsommar), and far removed from his American roots. He was physically away from home, but also emotionally and culturally. Gebauer has often discussed “home” as a symbol in interviews, namely that you can never return to it in a pure sense. It is a theme so prevalent in his work that it informed a song title on his latest EP Eskota. But in spite of his itinerant past, it seems that he’s getting mighty close to a hearth of his own making.

In the past twelve months, the songwriter has re-tethered himself to American soil after five years gone. Gebauer settled in the Bay Area last fall after a cross-country road trip that centered on the recording of this very album, in a Texas ghost town no less.

That town, was called Eskota.

The story of Eskota’s making is just as mesmerizing as the record itself, to the extent that it’s difficult to examine them separately…much like it’s a chore at times to distinguish Sawyer Gebauer from Catch Prichard, the artist from the person. There is a vague picture, but one cloaked in so much romanticism that it is blurred.

What is clear is the intent. What Gebauer set out to achieve as he drove from Wisconsin to Texas was a simpler sound, one detached from the dense arrangements of his former band. It had to be stripped down and restrained – so in order to facilitate such a mood, he and engineer Brad K. Dollar set up shop for a week in an abandoned mercantile. In the heat they lazed by day and recorded by night, drinking beer to pass the time between.

The record itself bears an authenticity that perhaps wouldn’t have surfaced had the tracks been laid in a fancy studio. Despite its simplicity (the pared down instrumentation features only guitar, pedal steel, drums and the occasional bass and Moog lines), there is a lot to chew on – a soup of intricate production details born of the location. Take for instance “Howl,” ushered in by a creaking chair and built upon the chirping Texas night. “You Can Never Go Home Again” signs off with lilting pedal steel and a faraway cough, presumably that of someone in the makeshift studio. These elements tastefully season the album like a well-prepared meal.

There is a warmth in Eskota I’ve yet to encounter in Gebauer’s music, an openness and vulnerability that doesn’t always show in his previous work. These songs seem both universally narrative and deeply personal, covering heartbreak (“So Close To It), friends remembered (“Eskota”), and becoming a native stranger (“Hometown”). Sonically it sits in a saddle between country, folk and Americana of the early ‘90s. Gebauer’s ten-gallon voice resonates over the brightness of electric guitar and pedal steel, anchoring any sweet feelings we might have with a dose of blues.

Though it’s taken a lot of mileage for him to get here, it seems Catch Prichard has arrived. Maybe you can go home after all.

Catch Prichard will play Rockwood Music Hall on October 26th. Tickets here.

Eskota is out October 21st via Devise Records. Stream the video by Leif Huron below:

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PLAYING DETROIT: Frontier Ruckus “27 Dollars”

A summer fantasy written in the thick of a Michigan winter, Detroit’s favorite folky foursome Frontier Ruckus delivers a new track “27 Dollars” from their forthcoming LP, just in time to instill premature longing for a summer that still has a few hours on the clock.

Singer-songwriter Matthew Millia is no stranger to volunteering his vulnerabilities by means of his pleasantly troubled troubadour dance with intimacy to the rich, extensive Americana fabric of the Frontier Ruckus catalogue. Joined by David Jones, Zachary Nichols and Anna Burch, Milia and company have tapped into a beloved era of mid-2000’s indie with a modern emotional intelligence that is fit for timelessness. A little Belle & Sebastian, a tad Okkervil River with a dash of seasonal repression and hopeful ennui, “27 Dollars” is an upbeat anthem for restless hearts and empty pockets; a true midwestern cocktail. The track bounces with banjo twang and swaying synths, eliciting a backseat tour through pot hole, pock marked streets with a cracked phone screen that you check incessantly despite finger tip splinters.

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ALBUM REVIEW: Foxygen “…And Star Power”

When I was in college, I spent a lot of time dating musicians, which meant I spent a lot of time sitting in on band practice. By “dating,” I guess I mean puttering around somebody’s basement, falling asleep on an old, bottomed-out couch, my French homework in my lap. Or being invited over to “hang out,” which meant lying around and listening to my amarato’s admittedly very good sound system crank out some rare Morphine b-side or watching him play “Wave of Mutilation” on acoustic guitar. But all that is beside the point. The point is, there’s something about Foxygen’s new album, …And Star Power, that reminds me very much of sitting in on band practice. The songs meander at length, and often talk more to themselves than to their listeners. They navel-gaze. To get to the nuggets of exhilaration and catchy magic buried in this thing, you have to sit through a lot of repetition, strumming, and self-amazement.

It’s easy to see why …And Star Power is so ambitious, and sometimes seems like it incorporates every musical thought the band has had over the past year. On their 2012 studio debut Take The Kids Off Broadway, the California-based outfit Foxygen–aka Jonathan Rado and Sam France, who between the pair of them make a sound so huge and anthemic it’s hard to believe they’re a duo–set a standard for overarching power rock full of catchy choruses and drunk-around-the-campfire feelgoodery. Then, the very next year, they put out the airtight and stellar We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic. It was sweet and raucous, and in its way, it was a huge album, too–concise as a well-packed suitcase, 21st Century Ambassadors seemed as if it could expand into two or three records worth of triumphs and lessons.

Measure for measure, the number of well-constructed melodies in …And Star Power probably equals that of 21st Century Ambassadors; however, the former is a double album, clocking in at about an hour and twenty minutes. With extra time comes extra filler, presented as spaciousness and a vaguely futuristic ambiance punctuated by such spoken interjections as “society, maaaan” thrown seemingly at random into the background of the tracks. One might imagine that Foxygen decided to make a double album before writing the requisite songs to fill one, but I think it’s more likely that …And Star Power‘s long-windedness is a result of a challenge it makes to itself to be even more multi-faceted than 21st Century Ambassadors, and simply incorporate every kind of music in the history of rock and roll. Thus the swirl of lo-fi strummed folk, the sludgy doom metal, the channel-changing static, thus the campy ’70’s space noises, thus the schizophrenic production. Like porch furniture being sucked into a tornado, classic Americana, noise rock, California psych, and more than a few nameless hybrids go flying towards the gaping maw of Foxygen’s musical vision. Voila: …And Star Power.

..And Star Power came out October 14th on Jagjaguwar. Pick up your copy here, and check out the psychedelic lullaby “Cosmic Vibrations,” from …And Star Power, below:

ALBUM REVIEW: Justin Townes Earle “Single Mothers”

The delightfully bespectacled Justin Townes Earle dependably releases a record every year or so, and has done so since 2007. He can be counted on for more than just punctuality, too. Not one of Earle’s records is a dud: at worst, he’s palatable and bland, and at his best, he expertly shines a light into fresh quadrants of the well-traversed territory of outlaw Americana. He comes honestly by his “darlin'”s and “mama”s–the son of Texas songwriter Steve Earle, who gave him his middle name in honor his godfather Townes van Zandt, JTE is the heir apparent of modern country, and despite what’s perhaps an understandable reluctance to fully embrace the Nashville lifestyle, the stuff seeps out of his pores. Every song is a story, piled high with neatly turned guitar work and vocals that can be mournful or flirtatious, contemplative or charming.

Often, in his songwriting, Earle plays the suave but troubled rambler. First there was “Ain’t Glad I’m Leaving,” off his full-length debut The Good Life, wherein he balks at romantic commitment and assures a protesting lover that she’s better off without him. Then came Midnight at the Movies, which included the similarly self-depracatory but audibly grief-stricken “Someday I’ll Be Forgiven For This.” As is often the case, true stories are behind the good lyrics. The years since he released his first EP Yuma haven’t been entirely smooth for Earle, who struggled with drug abuse and an arrest that led him into rehab in 2010.

He’s been sober for a couple of albums now, but his music still dips into the lonely, complicated character that defined the folk singer’s early work. The somber sections of Single Mothers, though, crystallize around the simple and deep-rooted sadness of an abandoned child–as opposed to the empty braggadocio of a loner who just can’t be tamed, not even by the love of a good woman. Maybe this interpretation reads into the title a little too much. The son of an absent famous father, Earle grew up with a single mother of his own.

But the title track–its steady beat and simple, symmetrical lyrical structure–sets the tone for the rest of Single Mothers in terms of gravity and mutedness. Reduced to its essential components, Earle’s songwriting doesn’t always grab your attention the way that his younger, more caddish self might. But there’s a payoff: you get to hear his voice at its most vulnerable.

Which isn’t to say that JTE has totally lost his swagger. “My Baby Drives” provides some rockabilly-ish, dance hall relief from the intimacy of “Single Mothers” and the forlorn next track, “Today and a Lonely Night.” “Wanna Be a Stranger” floats along with all the lightness and insta-nostalgia of small towns you drive through and don’t stop in. As a collection, though, Single Mothers tends towards interior songwriting that favors quiet payoffs over flashy country licks. In fact, it is as if Earle particularly avoided that kind of sexy troubledness that falls to those who walk out of their homes and go wandering, opting instead for the unshowy and exhausted hardship left for the single mothers who remain behind.

Single Mothers dropped September 9th on Vagrant Records, and you can order the album here. Check out the music video for “Time Shows Fools,” off Single Mothers, below!

ALBUM REVIEW: Israel Nash “Rain Plans”

The long-locked, regally bearded songwriter Israel Nash Gripka marries spacey psychedelic guitar work to wind-chilled vocals that pay a nod to Neil Young; Gripka’s songs amble, they meditate, they conduct experiments in theme and variation. His third and latest studio album, Rain Plans (out August 19th!) finds Gripka signed to independent British label Loose Music–an apt enough match, given Loose Music’s strong stable of Americana standards like Townes Van Zandt, Neko Case, and Steve Earle. And Gripka has some history in common with your average modern cowboy: originally of Missouri, he moved to New York City to release his first two albums, then split for Dripping Springs, Texas, where he soaked up what he refers to as the area’s “desert folklore” as inspiration for this forlorn, majestic new release.

I’m always interested to see what comes from a matchup of psychedelia and Americana. Despite the genres’ shared theme of wanderlust, the former tends to focus on that wandering’s texture and color, whereas the latter deals in oral history and storytelling. Long stretches of Rain Plans feel like deliberate efforts to let the songwriting move on a long leash, to see where the mind will go when it’s left to its own devices, in the absence of the civilization or plot. The musical patterns are cyclical, the melody unhurried, even listless. In one of the album’s most interior portions, in the back half of the title track, all vocals melt away, leaving a swirling and seemingly endless cycle of mesmerizing guitars. The only thing that remains fixed is the pace: held firm, as if by a metronome, at a slow stroll.

So it’s clear that the album is a journey, but one that moves in circles, and it may test many listeners’ patience not to see the point of all this meandering. With all due respect to the virtues of wandering without being lost, these songs are so relaxed that they sometimes don’t appear to grow from start to finish. There isn’t necessarily going to be development from one end of a song to another; in the worst case scenario, the music instead restates the same idea over and over again, in different ways. Rain Plans isn’t necessarily an album that’s going to tell you a story that has a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end.

But if you have time to sit with it a while, the album proves that, for Gripka, spaciousness rarely equals stagnancy. Consider the shimmeringly gorgeous “Iron of the Mountain,” which establishes a single, circular melody–one moment in time, one color–and then extends it for almost four and a half minutes. Rain Plans richly evokes the vivid aesthetic of folklore: it’s a snapshot, rather than a story, of the landscape. Think of it as a collection of moments, which bear loose connection but don’t need each other in order to function.

The only exception to that logic is the closer, “Rexanimarum,” which is Rain Plans’ most unabashedly rootsy track, with lyrics like “pour me out just like sour wine,” and even echoes of old country songs, “got the money if you got the time.” With a lovely and light touch of backup vocals, this song may be the album’s sunniest, and is certainly its most singalong-friendly.

Check out the full album stream over at the A.V. Club, and go here to order your physical copy of Rain Plans! Listen to “Rain Plans,” with all its swirly melodies and smooth vocal harmonies, below via SoundCloud:

TRACK REVIEW: Steve Gunn “Milly’s Garden”

Steve Gunn Constance Mensh — Steve Gunn. Photo by Constance Mensh

Despite his fifteen-year career and numerous collaborations, including work with Kurt Vile’s group The Violators, Steve Gunn always seems reluctant to advertise himself. I’m not just talking about advertising in a buy-my-records sense, although there is that — last year, the brilliantly nuanced Time Off slid right under the radar — but even on a riff by riff level, Gunn’s albums showcase his guitar work without bragging about it. Each phrase falls with decisiveness, but very little fanfare.

Not unlike its creator, Gunn’s new single “Milly’s Garden,” from the forthcoming full-length Way Out Weather, gives off an aura of understated good nature. Gunn’s music has always had a special sensitivity to physical environs, but whereas his more folky (and nomadic) records seemed to amble through a backdrop of wild Americana, “Milly’s Garden” sits still in and revels in one place, letting its thoughts turn inward instead of focusing on the passing scenery. Gunn’s virtuosity on the guitar isn’t flashy, but here, on a track that isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere, his skill shines through.

The song leans more towards instrumental long-form rock music than Gunn’s music has done in the past, and there is SO VERY MUCH to be said for a jam musician who isn’t blindly in love with the sound of his own guitar. Listening to this, it occurred to me that I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a blues-based long jam played humbly before, but here it is: and it’s just a way to isolate guitar lines and dress them up with intricacy and variation. When Gunn lets his ingenuity on the guitar be more important than structure or vocals or songwriting, the resulting music actually feels pared down. “Milly’s Garden” is catchier and more concentrated than most of the songs on Time Off, but doesn’t sacrifice any of the intimacy of that album.

Way Out Weather doesn’t drop until October 7th, but you can pre-order it now and check out “Milly’s Garden” below via Soundcloud:

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TRACK REVIEW: Black Honey “Sleep Forever” (Demo)

Ask not for whom the gramophone croons. By now, Black Honey‘s obscured identity can’t be unintentional. Their demo “Sleep Forever” is hooky-as-hell, sinister pop noir, with a timelessness that’s strengthened by their mysterious identity. Lipstick-stained cigarettes and flickering neon come to mind, but “Sleep Forever” is about more than just cinematics. The female-lead vocals, vast in strength and range but appealingly bored-sounding, are a highlight of this track. Backed by a sultry electric guitar line, the song ambles through some three and a half minutes of brooding lullaby, evoking plenty of its own imagery without drawing comparisons to the band’s backstory. Maybe that’s the point. Black Honey comes across like a time capsule, undisrupted by a biography outside of their cloying brand of night music. Listen to “Sleep Forever” below:

ALBUM REVIEW: Melaena Cadiz “Deep Below Heaven”

Brooklyn-based singer songwriter Melaena Cadiz is a a great storyteller. This Michican native combines folk, country, and pop in her music to create scenes which showcase lonely lives across America. Her new album Deep Below Heaven, out May 20th, is what Cadiz calls a book of short stories. The title comes from a Sam Shepard story about a man who has the sense of being deep below heaven when he falls off of his motorcycle during an accident. Cadiz’s own collection of stories chronicles Americans who are all struggling in their own universe, but united in that space deep below.

Cadiz has a great voice, eloquent and elucidated. Though she tries to lend each of her characters the emotion and energy they deserve, she can come off as almost too cerebral, lacking a bit of soul. But a strong sense of wanderlust is palpable in the music, a good reflection of the words. These characters are all “striving for a better place in the world” or a way to “quiet the deep ache within their bones.” They attempt to find an escape from their inner demons, wandering around, searching, but not finding any true release. Everyone is in transit on this record, physically or mentally. The track “Home Town” is great example of this movement. It’s a very personal account of someone who feels alienated instead of comfortable in their home, someone who decides to travel West, and the catchy tune mimics the gusto with which someone might attempt such a feat.

At times, Cadiz falls into a more pop-oriented indie vibe, which can feel out of place. But for the most part, her voice and lyrics keep it all from becoming too generic or one-note. In the same way that she explores different people and parts of America, the music moves between genres. There’s the occasional rasping trumpet. Sometimes there’s a simple, classic country feel and Cadiz’s voice has the timeless echoes of Tammy Wynette. But other times it bursts with modern undertones, reaching toward something more thumping and lively like KT Tunstall. Her strong references to Americana roots haven’t appeared so dramatically on the indie scene since Saddle Creek’s days of shelling Bright Eyes or Rilo Kiley releases. Cadiz, however, is perhaps a bit too ambitious. She has wonderful, engaging ideas, but she fails to capture them in their entirety, especially in the music, and she doesn’t completely own them or make them fully hers. But ultimately this is a fun, thoughtful ride.

Listen to “Hometown” below and check out the rest of Deep Below Heaven May 20th!

ALBUM REVIEW: crash “Hardly Criminal”

Awww yeah.

That’s my initial and abiding reaction to “Motion Animal,” the first single off Chris Richard aka crash‘s solo debut, Hardly Criminal. Crash, backup singer for the Magnetic Zeros and frontman for Deadly Syndrome, finally gets to spotlight his tenor at its sultry finest on this dressed-down soul track, and the motown gods are surely pleased.

Anyone familiar with the singer’s work would be surprised to see him stick fully in one genre for a full album, though, and Hardly Criminal expands satisfyingly from soul outward. Crash grew up in Louisiana, imbibing a country-fied blend of Americana, folk, and New Orleans street-performer blues, and he can do all those styles with equally endearing swagger. “Motion Animal” comes two tracks in and holds its title as the catchiest number through the end of this record, but we hear plenty of that danceability on the down-homier “If God Was A Cajun” and the string-happy “All My Friends.” What’s especially impressive about Hardly Criminal, though, is how well crash pulls off the slower, sweeter stuff. On the succinct “Song For The Birds,” crash keeps his oddball charm in the lyrics (“Was feeding you worms/but I forgot that you don’t eat them”) but strums introspective layers of round-like, repetitive acoustic guitar, angling his voice away from soul flourish and towards a simpler, more vulnerable croon. “Britches Catch Fire,” one of the album’s most impressive demonstrations of crash’s sheer power to sustain a high note, hints at gospel in the harmonies. His versatility looms large, and surprises again and again on this record.

All told, the quieter tracks add up to a majority of Hardly Criminal, and I would have liked to see the album filled out with a couple more swingers – “Motion Animal” left me jonesing for more groove – but both in terms of songwriting and vocals, crash skillfully pulls off every style he ambles into on this collection. No matter the flavor, every single track on Hardly Criminal is worth a replay. This cat is it.

Hardly Criminal drops May 6th. You can preorder it here, and check the “Motion Animal” music video below for a soulful blast of groovy get-down:

ALBUM REVIEW: Nathaniel Rateliff “Falling Faster Than You Can Run”

At eighteen, Nathaniel Rateliff moved from his hometown of Bay, Missouri, population 60, to Denver. He focused first on finding work, but after a mysterious bout of health issues forced him to take a break from his job at a trucking company, he slid into the indie folk scene sideways, quickly becoming a local darling of Americana and indie folk. American music, as Rateliff knows, comes from a patchwork of styles, half accidentally thrown together, half borne of different kinds of musicians playing together. Rateliff’s path into music reflected some approximation of this same amalgamation. He’s played in a number of groups, including folky rock group Born In The Flood and his more recent soul project The Night Sweats, and he released an early, homemade batch of recordings as Nathaniel Rateliff and The Wheel. Monikers and fluctuations of style notwithstanding, though, Rateliff is recognizable in any project he lays hands on, and that’s all due to the reedy, pulse-happy rhythms of his singing.

On his second full-length solo album, Falling Faster Than You Can Run, Rateliff takes us further down the direction of interior, quietly catchy songwriting he established on his Rounder Records debut In Memory of Loss, which came out in 2010. The two albums also share a penchant for bleakness. The acoustic spaciousness of the tracks on Falling Faster highlight Rateliff’s voice, and that voice often sounds pretty sorrowful: sharp, emotional volume spikes on the choruses make each song into a miniature nervous breakdown, with plenty of room for wallowing in the acoustic guitar line. Many of the tracks were written on the road, when Rateliff was touring, and you get a real sense of nomadic loneliness listening to this collection. The lyrics are songwriter-intimate but bear far remove, as if the songs look down at their subjects from thirty thousand feet.

Falling Faster‘s best lyrical moments come when Rateliff reveals the cheekier side of his charm, as is the case on the comparatively bouncy and lighthearted “Laborman” (“I’m begging your pardon if I kinda like the way it feels,” Rateliff sings, and you can practically hear him smirking into the microphone.) Those moments of sunniness serve the album well, and a few more would have not only expanded Falling Faster‘s range, but placed well-deserved focus on the gorgeous flexibility of Rateliff’s voice.

Watch the official video for “Still Trying,” off forthcoming album Falling Faster Than You Can Run, below:

ALBUM REVIEW + ARTIST PROFILE: New Bums

Although Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn’s initial dislike for each other when they met, a few years ago, was personal–not musical–it’s tempting to talk about, because their work together now is so dependent on their bond. They always liked each other’s music (Quinn released albums with Skygreen Leopards, Chasny with Six Organs of Admittance, Rangda, and Comets on fire, to name a few). When the pair formed New Bums, they entered into a collaboration that uniquely fused each member’s skill set into a partnership that couldn’t be broken in half. On their debut album together, Voices in a Rented Room, the group wears its intent on its sleeve: Quinn’s trademark folky lyric imagery seems to be emitting simultaneously and from the same point of origin as Chasny’s delicate instrumental ramblings.

The low-lit, husky vocals of the first song on Voices, “Black Bough,” immediately conjures a backdrop of moodiness and melancholy, and that aura stays strong throughout the album’s twelve tracks. Acoustic guitar-based melodies, bearing tight-knit likenesses to their lyrical counterparts, emerge over this backdrop, waxing and waning as the songs wear on. It’s dark, sparsely-laid stuff, with lots of chilly backup oohs and ahhs, that also brings some catchy phrasings–like the ones on “The Killers and Me”–that have kind of an old-time cowpoke feel. “The longest train I ever saw..” one line begins on “Town on the Water,” in un-showy evocation of the traditional–and great–“In The Pines.” In other spots, too, New Bums tip a quiet salute to Old, Weird America with ragged vocals and guitars that trill like mandolins. The band side-steps a direct descendant-ness from American folk, though, with switched-up rhythmic weight and a modern approach to lyrical metaphor. Though the music emerges from a couple different songwriting traditions, New Bums’ tracks are too interior, and too personally crafted, to really resemble anything but themselves. The influences are visible, but none will smack you over the head.

Separately, Chasny and Quinn have been associated with the new folk and acoustic-leaning psychedelic schools of music-making. This project’s most apparent deviation from their other lives as musicians is how dialed down the impulse to push into new, extreme turf feels on Voices. The music demands attention the way a whisper makes you quiet down to hear it. “I don’t know if anyone will notice it or care about it, but I like it because it’s sweet,” Quinn told AudioFemme last week, explaining “Town on the Water” is one of his favorite tracks off the new album. A lot of the songs on Voices, sweet or not, are like that, quiet enough to slip by unnoticed. Whether sighing like a woodsier, and slightly less devastated, Elliott Smith on “Mother’s Favorite Hated Son” or tracing the feathery, high-register melodies of “Black Bough,” Quinn and Chasny’s vocals yield more the more–and the closer–you listen to them. If you like your folk low and slow, your guitars sweet and your lyrics bleak, try Voices in a Rented Room on for size. The album’s out February 18th on Drag City. Check out the music video for “The Killers and Me” below:

Last week, I called up New Bums to talk about the recording of Voices and get some insight into their collaboration process. Turns out, there’s a mystery man named Willem Jones behind the duo, and he started it all–even directing the video you see above. The story of their initial dislike for each other became even funnier when, since the two band members were in different parts of California and I kept losing one or the other’s line when I tried to put them on conference call, they started ragging on each other like Jewish mothers. “I don’t think he has service,” Quinn said first. “Let me give you another number. Once Chasny was on the phone, Quinn dropped out. “He has a land line,” Chasny insisted. “Ask him why he isn’t using his landline.” The pair had clearly overcome their differences, and then some. Read on to discover how New Bums write their songs, where they got their name, and which of them is secretly a malevolent space alien just biding his time before pursuing world domination.

AF: We’ve heard your band is a “grudging match-up.” How did you guys meet?

Donovan Quinn: We had a mutual friend named Willem Jones and he brought us together. At first we didn’t get along for various reasons, but over time we started talking about music and different writers and found that we had a lot in common, but there are also a lot of differences to our approach. I’ve always been a fan of Ben’s music. I just jumped at the opportunity to work with him.

Ben Chasny: We had crossed paths at festivals before we started hanging out with Willem, and I think [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][Quinn] had a dislike for me from then. Apparently we had already met once, and then I ran into him while I was at Amoeba Records shopping, and he tells me that he came up to me and I didn’t recognize him. So he got offended and wrote me off forever.

AF: So you just got off on the wrong foot? Your differences were always personal, not musical?

DQ: Yeah, I think Ben is easily one of the best guitar players in the world. He’s a shredder. But he’s also a great songwriter, and songwriting has always been my main interest. We tried to make that the focal point of the group—as opposed to the other projects we’ve each been a part of—so we always try to start a song by having the lyrics and melody together, and then work from that.

AF: You guys are both veterans, you’ve each been involved in a bunch of different collaborations.

DQ: Yeah, we’re old. We’ve both been around for a long time and have done a lot of music. When we got together and decided we wanted to start New Bums, we really wanted to come up with an idea and an aesthetic that we hadn’t done before, that would be its own thing. We do benefit from having done different albums, been involved with different bands, but it was important to make sure we were doing something new with this project.

BC: An interesting thing I’ve noticed throughout the years, is when two people get together to collaborate, they kind of always want to do what the other person is doing. So if you have some guy—not me, but if I take this out of my perspective—who was doing a lot of heavy metal, and he got together with someone who was doing dance music, the heavy metal guy would start wanting to do dance music and the dance guy would be like, ‘Oh, no, I want to do what you’re doing!’ That’s what always happens to me when I collaborate. With Donovan, it was apparent pretty immediately that there was a certain middle ground we were going for. I mean, what we do separately isn’t so different in the first place.

AF: Where does the name New Bums come from?

DQ: I don’t know if Ben will remember this differently, but that’s another Willem Jones thing. We would get together at his parties, and we were the only people there under sixty years old, and we were called the new bums. It just stuck. I really like the name. I don’t know if it’s the best name, but for better or worse, we just became the New Bums.

BC: It came to the point where we’d try to come up with other names. When we tried to do that, nothing else made sense, because that’s what those guys were calling us. We don’t see each other that way, but we thought it was funny.

DQ: It’s really a partnership. We wanted to have a band where, with anything we put out, we couldn’t do it without the other person. Especially because now, if you meet a band, every single person in the band has their own thing, too. They’ll play drums, or whatever, but also have their own project. We wanted to try to get away from that auteur thing and have it really be truly collaborative.

AF: Do you write songs totally collaboratively?

DQ: Usually, one of us will have an idea, and then try not to develop it too much, so that the other person can have some input. It might just be a chord change or a couple of lines, a lyric idea, and then the other person will just jump on. An example would be “Your Girlfriend Might Be A Cop,” I started with the idea of hanging out with a new friend and getting the crazy paranoid idea that this new friend of yours actually might be a cop who’s gonna turn you in. Ben saw that in a notebook of mine and came up with a melody around it. He came up with this idea of the unreliable narrator, and it being somebody’s girlfriend. That’d be an example of how we would work—somebody comes up with an idea, the other one rearranges it, and it goes back and forth.

BC: Donovan’s really lyric-oriented, and I’m more driven by chords and music. He doesn’t work on chords as much, and I definitely don’t work on words as much. But it’s funny, on the record, the songs came in every different way. Some songs he wrote all the lyrics, some songs I wrote all the lyrics, on some songs the verses are half mine and half his. The music is written mostly by one person, though. Every song seems like it was created in a different way. Which is pretty exciting. We don’t have a template.

AF: Is that an example of what you were talking about before, about picking up on what the other person in your group is doing and wanting to get into that?

BC: Yeah. That’s the reason why I’m in this band. I’m in a bunch of bands, doing different things, but the reason why I’m in this band is because of the word stuff. This is my band to work on lyrics. Also, to have a good time.

AF: Even if you did get off to a bad start, you seem to have gotten very close. Is the music you’ve made a byproduct of your friendship?

BC: Yeah, I moved away from San Francisco for a while, and we would use the band as an excuse to get together. He’d say, ‘I’ll fly up to Seattle,’ where I was living at the time, ‘We’ll finish this record!’ And he’d come up and we wouldn’t even work on it, we’d just hang out. In that way, the band was more of a vehicle for friendship, but now we’re doing it more seriously.

DQ: Like I said, I was a fan of Ben’s. I think he has a great aesthetic and a great mind for music. We’d go to the bar and talk about Townes Van Zandt for hours. I just get excited about working with someone I can see eye to eye with, and who also has ideas I never would have. Even if there was no record, or shows, we would still have become New Bums and it would have been a secret band for our own enjoyment.

AF: It sounds like a really fun and easy experience for you, making music right now.

DQ: Our idea of fun may be different than some peoples’. Both me and Ben—we aren’t known for, uh, a relaxed demeanor when it comes to music. We’re both liable to have a total meltdown during any given moment at a show, but it does help to have somebody with you who you can kind of rely upon. It is really fun. Ben says that it’s kind of like a buddy film. We try not to be ever at all lazy with the music—have space and all that, yes, but we also take a lot of time to make sure that we can listen back to a song a thousand times and there’s not something in there that we think is shitty.

AF: How did that come through on your new album, Voices From A Rented Room? What were your goals for the record?

DQ: Every step of the way, the way we came up with the songs was a product of all these ideas and dreams we had and that we had talked about for years. We tried to get the feeling of the two of us in a room playing the song together, very loose and late-night feeling. I feel that a lot of new music is really built up. Whether it’s pop, or heavy music, or whatever, it’s really pushed up to ten—armored, in a way. I think that’s because it’s hard to get attention in the music world, because there’s so much music, and so many ways to hear it, that people really want to immediately make a big impression. We kind of want the opposite of that. We want to come across naturally, the way we would if you were in the room listening to us come up with the songs and jam.

BC: I was just happy to have songs with more of a narrative—an apparent narrative—as opposed to the kind of material I usually work with, which has more of a hidden narrative and fewer words. I think if New Bums has any philosophy, it’s just…um, to record songs ourselves and not spend a lot of money. True to our name. We tried not to be very extravagant, and at the same time, we wanted to take a lot of care and pay a lot of attention. I don’t know that we have a philosophy beyond that. If we do, it’s still in the works.

AF: The first track “Black Bough,” which you’ve released already, feels very pared down and sparse.

DQ: That was the first song that we wrote for the project. After we came up with “Black Bough,” it gave us a lot of confidence to go forward with the band. That song, maybe more than any other on the album, has all the ideas that we wanted to get across with the band. It’s sparse, and has a lot of space, which we always enjoy. It’s got the kind of space you hear in seventies outlaw country music, and early hip hop, too, where the beats are really spacious.

AF: What was the process of recording that song like?

BC: We were just trying to figure each other out, at that time. We lived really close to each other, and he would come over late at night. He had that song, and I remember just playing it my garage, because I was lucky enough to have a garage in San Francisco at that time. I remember drinking a lot, and not remembering how to play the song. It was a pretty fun song.

AF: It’s funny you should say that, because the song—and the whole album—also seems very melancholy. Do you both prefer darker stuff?

DQ: Yeah, me and Ben have that in common. We tend to do dark music. Different people have different things that make them want to write, and usually I write when I’m looking back on something. I write a lot of songs about relationships—romantic, family, friendships—but the point of view I find it easiest to write from is when it’s over, and you’re looking back on it, which is inherently sad. So that leads me into darker territory more often than not.

AF: What’s your favorite song on the album?

DQ: I have a couple. I really love “Your Girlfriend Might Be A Cop” and “Black Bough.” “Town on the Water” is kind of a band favorite. It’s one of those songs where I don’t know if anyone will notice it or care about it, but I like it because it’s sweet. It’s a kind-hearted song, which is hard for our band to write. We’re better at the dour, shattered songs. “Town on the Water” is about combing your hair to go out on a date, dancing in the hallway and stuff. I was really excited to have a song like that, that I thought my mom would like. In fact, Chasny gave his father the album and he said that was his favorite song. We were pretty excited about that.

AF: Earlier, Donovan, you mentioned that Ben kind of thinks of your band as a buddy film. If we were watching “New Bums” The Movie, how would that buddy film end?

BC: Well, I would hope it would be a sci-fi buddy film. Donovan would definitely end up being an alien. Or one of us would, at least—much to the surprise of the other one. Not a nice alien. A real mean alien. But an alien that wouldn’t harm the other band member. It would be like—oh wow, here is this creature that’s usually really mean, but it’s been nice to me this whole time.

AF: So Donovan the Alien would wreak havoc on the world, and then spare you?

BC: Maaaaybe. It would be a big question mark. Just like The Thing, at the end. Would I actually be spared, or not? In fact I think there’s a good chance that that’s actually how the band is gonna end. Maybe without the alien part.

AF: Well, that leaves room for a sequel.

BC: Precisely. A big question mark.

Many thanks to Ben Chasny and Donovan Quinn for entertaining our questions! Once again, Voices in a Rented Room is out 2/18/14 via Drag City; you can pick up your copy and learn more about the Bums here. Listen to “Black Bough,” the first track off the album, via SoundCloud:
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TRACK REVIEW: “Spider”

One man band turned trio- The Entrance Band shows us a thing or two about mixing sexy with morbid love hopelessness…

Guy Blakeslee‘s voice is far from scared or submissive. However, The Entrance Band’s new single, “Spider”, proves otherwise. Blakelee seems to be captivated-unsure if willingly- by a Ms. Spider. “Use your silk, tie my hand…your wish is my command.” The song has many elements, but all comes together with an awesome riff, in a trippy-fantasy web. Alongside Paz Lenchantin and Derek James, this song delivers. There aren’t many bands that still have their MySpace up and with a post more current than three years old. I can see why this trio has a solid fan base. Their album Face The Sun (Beyond Beyond is Beyond) is scheduled to drop November 19th. In the meantime, check out “Spider”, and get entangled in its web, just like we have here at audiofemme.

Listen to “Spider” here via Soundcloud:

LIVE REVIEW: Low and Mike Doughty @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

Mike Doughty has been through a lot in his musical career. He divorced his commercially successful band Soul Coughing, which he considered a “dark, abusive marriage”, was dropped from Warner record label, and battled it out with a drug addiction. Through his struggle, he’s grown into a grounded solo artist who makes music with simplicity, sincerity and wisdom. This June 19th he brought his stripped down singer-songwriter act to Music Hall of Williamsburg, and shared the headline with Low, another Americana inspired band. Doughty’s mischievous demeanor and catchy singer songwriter style balanced Low’s emotionally drenched slowcore approach.

Doughty’s songs revolve around poetic storytelling. Doughty recently released a book of poetry entitled Slanky, and uses this brand of poetic wordplay and fantastic imagery in his lyrics. The lyrics are heady yet relatable and touch on classic folk and americana themes of love, leaving and emotional journey. With only guitar and drums on stage, the vocals are exposed; thus his strong lyric writing abilities carry the songs.

“Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well” is Doughty’s most commercially successful song, and was created out of literary inspiration from Haruki Murakami’s novel Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. On stage, Doughty quips “Sandra Oh made out to this song in an elevator once.” The hit song was indeed featured in an episode of Gray’s Anatomy, as well as on Veronica Mars and on David Letterman. Doughty also draws inspiration from John Denver, and his latest album The Flip Is Another Honey includes several covers. “Sunshine on My Shoulders” is a cover of Denver’s “Sunshine”, and unexpectedly incorporates rapping. The impetus for this style mash-up, Doughty explains, is that he needed to impress his rapper girlfriend.

Doughty’s music is best live, as he inserts amusing tidbits of his musical journey and colorful past. Doughty quickly lets the audience in, shares his secrets and disarms the crowd. His guitar playing is not virtuosic, nor does it need to be. He plays with unique flare, as though his guitar is nearly too hot to touch, and keeps an upbeat rhythmic style coursing throughout. He pokes and prods drummer Pete “Pancho” Wilhoit, as Wilhoit has quite the serious attitude in relation to Doughty. The exchanges between the two were entertaining, partly because Doughty’s musical background sounds more instinctual than technical, and can be a challenge for a technically minded drummer to follow.

Dave Matthews is a professed fan of Mike Doughty, and it’s no wonder; they sound quite similar at times. Just add a soulful saxophone solo to Doughty’s “Looking at the World…”, and the Matthews songwriting formula is captured. Doughty’s signature vocal lilt and low bluesy rasp, folk rock/blues influenced range compares closely with his American rock contemporary. Yet Doughty diverges from Matthews in his stripped down performance style and ability to catch his audience off guard.

Mike Doughty has released five solo albums and is currently in the process of reworking some of his older Soul Coughing songs. His music connects to emotional depth and honesty, but keeps it light all the same. He’s a singer songwriter who boldly shares his wisdom from mistakes and struggles, all with a twinkle in his eye.

Low has made a career of slowcore, which is a feat to sustain over the course of their lengthy run as a band. The slowcore genre envelops listeners with minimalist melodies, downbeat tempos and emotionally vulnerable vocals. Low embodies this genre, and rarely diverges from the melancholy mood they create onstage.

The band is based out of Duluth, Minnesota. In my college years at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Low was an unforgettable musical discovery. In 2009 I saw them perform on a small stage of Teatro Zuccone, and I was electrified by their ability to shift the mood of the entire theater, hush and lull the crowd, and create a beautifully vulnerable performance. Now, seeing Low again after all these years, I was elated to hear the band stay true to their roots and the sound they crafted years ago.

Low played plenty of crowd pleasing hits from their catalog, including “Violent Past”, “Monkey”, and “Dragonfly”, but also languished in their newest album The Invisible Way. This album breaks a bit from their traditional sound, as the music focuses more on drummer Mimi Parker’s vocals. She sings with a rich, dark , trembling tone, and her vocals are thick with expressiveness and a hint of sadness. Parker typically sings harmony to Alan Sparhawk’s lead vocals, so this shift added greater variety to their sound as a band.

By committing to this mood influenced style, Low limits their musical range. The band rarely performs upbeat music, although they do have the ability to uplift their listeners or bring them to a sad melancholy state. Their vocal harmonizing melts the heart, and Steve Garrington expertly upholds the melody on piano and bass. Parker’s drum playing is extremely simple and straight forward, and serves as the heart beat of the band.

“On My Own” was a weak spot in the set. The song is off the latest album, and falls flat on stage. Sparhawk sings the words “happy birthday” over and over until he begins to sound like a broken record. Possibly the intention was to transport the audience through repetition, but to where, it was unclear. Low closed with the song “Canada”, which has a driving drum beat and an uplifting mood, and showed off the band’s emotional range.

The set at Music Hall of Williamsburg was pretty, emotionally wrought, exposed, dark, sad, gentle and intense. Low captures so many nuances in their songs, and continues to grow and deepen as a band. If you’ve been a longtime fan, or are hearing them for the first time, you’ll hear a sound that is current and familiar all at once.

LIVE REVIEW: Sean Kennedy and Bill Bartholomew @ Rock Shop

The Rock Shop is a seductive, darkly lit bar with a rock n’ roll vibe, which unfolds into a cozy performance space in the back. As a Park Slope local, I’m keenly aware it’s one of the few solid venues in the neighborhood to catch independent musicians. I still mourn that South Paw is being turned into a rock wall gym for children. The Park Slope moms won that round. But still, Rock Shop leaves hope for local indie rock lovers. This night celebrated folk/Americana artists with dynamic lead singers. Listening to solo artistSean Kennedy and self-titled band Bill Bartholomew back to back, I was struck not only by the contrasting vocal styles, but also by their divergent approaches to songwriting and performance.

Folk music has seen a revival and reinterpretation as of late, but is still rooted in its oral tradition. Stories pass down from generation to generation in the form of lyrics, and focus on themes centered around class. The Americana genre encompasses music that is patriotic, nostalgic, and rooted in early American music forms such as bluegrass, folk and country. Bill Bartholomew captures the essence of both genres, and melds these characteristics with his own rock and roll vision.

Bartholomew’s lyrics take precedence in his songs, and his vocals give a crystal clear, clean-cut delivery. His music tends to carry listeners along with his upbeat, energetic demeanor. A few poignant folk style ballads are in his repertoire as well. “Morgantown” looks into social responsibility of small town lower class struggles. These ballads capture Bartholomew’s vocal expressiveness best.

Vocalist Gabriella Rassi is truly what makes this group unique. She added beautiful harmonies to Bartholomew’s singing, and also plays the harmonium, which for those not familiar, is a portable pump organ made popular in the late 19^th century. This piece adds a fantastic vintage sound to the music, and without her, the band risks sliding into too commonplace a sound. Already Bartholomew’s vocals and songwriting style are reminiscent of folk rock band Wilco, which in many ways is a compliment, but without a compelling difference in sound, Bartholomew’s music has already been done.

Bartholomew has put in the work with songwriting and fronting the group, and he often does perform his sets solo. But as an audience member, I found it frustrating that some potential stand out moments from the other artists were overshadowed and struggled to cut through the mix. Rassi’s voice and harmonium playing were often buried in the songs (although this is partly a sound engineer issue). Overall, the set was energetic, honest and well honed. Bill Bartholomew and the Governours’ song “World on a Wire” is a notable song to check out.

Another performance of the night was Sean Kennedy, who is not to be confused with the Scottish Michael Bublé doppelganger of the same namesake (yes, this is a real person). Kennedy performed a solo act with guitar and exposed, emotive vocals. His stripped down performance and sorrowful, sensitive mystique garnered the rapt attention of a few young, single ladies in the crowd. A ways into his set, he divulged some lyric meaning to reference a time he recently spent living with his grandmother to save money. His grandma’s neighbor was a woman who apparently had the hots for him. His storytelling is unusual at times, but also strikes a chord with the dreamer and the struggling artist.

Kennedy’s singing voice is striking. He has a wispy tenor timbre, which is exposed and sorrowful. This distinctive vocal choice can be a dangerous one if not kept in check, as these higher, mood driven tones can border on a whiney quality if not backed with strong conviction and depth. Kennedy crossed this line a few times.

As I listened, I imagined his music fitting best on an indie compilation, where artist variation is sought after. His sound is well packaged and immediately accessible. Yet by the end of the 45-minute run, my ears began to fatigue of such similar emotional content. Kennedy could do well to add another musician to the mix for longer sets. The power in his emotive, sorrowful sound could be explosive if balanced with more instrumentation and fully exposed only on rare occasion.

The evening’s folk/Americana vibe was refreshing to hear, as each artist added his or her own signature twist to the genre. Folk and Americana styles are relevant today as the storytelling tradition continues to express the experiences of our time. The singer/songwriter tradition is alive and well in Brooklyn, and elsewhere.

Tag: Americana