Not all messages are displayed:
show all messages (234 of them)
xpost The Charley is very good in its way but yeah, I feel more detached from this particular set than I want to be, so far (will listen more). Variations on, maybe scenes from the fantasy life of someone who would kinda like to be The Red-Headed Stranger, but mainly he's thinking about heading to/through Texas (he's from Waco, but passing through Atlanta etc.?). with this Pioneer Days/rocking horse Western cadence (at one point singing about "Cowboy Candy"), and I like the way his gruff voice rolls around in his head, not that tight dry Texas thing, and sometimes he goes sideways into a 60s-type Black jazz-blues-folk groove like Oscar Brown Jr. meets terse Ramsey Lewis and makes it fit thematically---but the revenge-ish themey-ness is very persistent and something I have limited interest in to start with.
― dow, Wednesday, 21 December 2022 18:13 (one year ago) link
She is, indeed, great, but is best known in the Northwest, for sure.
Her significant other (unless things have changed) is Jeffrey Martin, who is also a terrific folk singer based in Portland. This is my favorite record of his, and the first track is (imo) a stunner: https://jeffreymartinportland.bandcamp.com/album/one-go-around
― alpine static, Thursday, 22 December 2022 01:39 (one year ago) link
Yeah, I wanna check Tivel too, thanks for the encouragememt!
Good point about McKenna, wonder if she's heard Akeem? The word is spreading among Akeem-inclined listeners, for sure.
Reminds me:the McKennaesque combo of kitchen sink realism x dynamics has been growing on me every time I listen to the Kaitlin Butts EP.
(Warning! Do not do this on a Windows 7 Dell laptop---go straight to the library and TURN IT UP on a Dell Windows 10 desktop. On the former, her voice sounds little and thin and crowded by the band.)
Properly heard (via new $30.00 Koss over-ear cans), she has no prob finding room, even when in the nasty, roiling, rippling regular guitar and steel guitar hallways of "Jackson." The band even saves the one substandard script, the title song, which is as static as the life it describes. The backing drone and guitar break of "She's Using Again" have a narcotic trace, and Butts esp. scores w mention of "getting straight," getting normie functional enough to do whatever you gotta do, esp. re: scoring again, and again. This not so much scolding or even complaining, just once again observing (to someone who really isn't listening) how you're doing this again: the observer, who seems to have a close connection (now changed) to the user, has to some extent become part of the routine, the normalization.
Which goes well with "Blood"'s "You're in my veins, " as the cyclic music rises, like xpost "So This is Christmas" ("And what have you done"), yes, and "Stewball" before it. This is the one where I also started hearing her as filling the Iris DeMent gap---suffering a little by comparison, since she doesn't have DeMent's somewhat impulsive way with phrasing, like she's thinking about driving the County Bookmobile somewhere way off---but Iris ain't here, so I'll take it, and would anyway.
Nevertheless, also can't help noticing, from the first minute of the first listen, that Ingrid Andress sounds like nobody I can think of but herself, while leaping from peak to peak on Good Person (she's suddenly struck by that phrase, even wheels around to ask somebody what that's like, and did they ever do anything bad [sounds like she's wondering if you can do that and what is it if you can also still be good, as considered by yourself and others: she does give you room and inclination to think about stuff like that, with breadcrumbs in the whirlwind).
Also bounces phrases off intractable and/or impassive love-hate objects (and even ones that ask wtf: well, since you've asked, she'll come out of her shell)(for instance busting a steady for cheating on her with her younger self), also bouncing them off intractability itself: "My parents have lived in the same house for almost 40 years now, and the only time they were ever on the same page, it was in their high school yearbook." Ha, good one, next (what are they gonna say to that? "No!" "I tried!" "Duh!" Anything?)
But the real test is, will the country pop sonic revelry (sorry, Akeem) turn to mush when she starts being breadcrumbed back to the new love experience? No. Although I won't say just how that goes (Merry Whatever, Happy New Year, and good luck to all concerned, as always).
― dow, Friday, 23 December 2022 02:49 (one year ago) link
This is the one where I also started hearing her as filling the Iris DeMent gap---suffering a little by comparison, since she doesn't have DeMent's somewhat impulsive way with phrasing, like she's thinking about driving the County Bookmobile somewhere way off---but Iris ain't here, so I'll take it, and would anyway.
Well I'll be..
― Indexed, Friday, 23 December 2022 14:36 (one year ago) link
Wow, yall right about Anna Tivel, damn. People at a crossroads, living there, wherever they go, incl. back to bed. Despite some small electric appliances with the finger-picking, sounds less like Americana per se than Oregon country: the rain, the city, timberland, desert, roads, schoolbook images of the Trail not too far away. Wondering if some songs will seem too similar, but so far I notice that each one has its own details, as written, performed (incl. by uncredited players), recorded. Bandcamp has the lyrics, which aren't strictly necessary--what a sound---but good to get more detail right away:
https://annativel.bandcamp.com/album/outsiders
― dow, Friday, 23 December 2022 20:46 (one year ago) link