Explosions In The Sky
Album: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Space
Song: Your Hand In Mine
The guy has great stage presence. Has a broad sense of theatricality and showmanship. And his flow is admirable, from time to time. His rhymes are pretty good too. So why do I hate Kanye West?
"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." - Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan
"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing." - Maya Angelou as quoted in Neal Zero, The Truth in Words
As a society we tend to overvalue cynicism. It implies a type of world weariness born from hard earned, perhaps bitter, experience. As such it implies wisdom. As such it implies intelligence. And it carries with it a cool cachet.
Close your eyes and picture a cynic. I see only the pretense of cool, of intelligence, and of wisdom. I see someone trying very hard to impress, more interested in the pages of Vogue than the pages of Mother Jones. I see someone with a chip on his shoulder, eager to prove his knowledge but lacking the subtlety to contextualize that knowledge. I see someone more than willing to proselytize and to preach but someone ill equipped to listen closely. I see someone desperate to succeed, but only in fields that popular culture values important. I see Kanye West.
Okay. Now wipe that picture from your memory, and watch this: Explosions in the Sky, Your Hand in Mine. I see a group of people who don't care how they are perceived. I see a group of people willing to create something beautiful simply for the sake of beauty. I see youthful idealism, perhaps even Romanticism. I see nerdy earnestness. I see a group of people with whom I would like to sit and discuss music and art and whatever else we might feel passionately about.
Here's the studio version of the song, if you're interested.
Once upon a time, I was a new grad student at the University of Victoria. Given that "new" and "dumb" are practically synonymous when it comes to grad students, it follows that once upon a time I was a dumb grad student at the University of Victoria. Those were heady days, hanging out with other smart "dumb" grad students, spending hours, days, weeks listening obsessively to one composer or another, attending seminars with world-renowned musicologists. An excellent adventure, to be sure. Being dumb, however, I still hadn't found academic focus, and I spent many sleepless nights contemplating my thesis topic. Eventually I pared my choices to two: one based on a relatively obscure type of wind-band music that I seemed to hear in the symphonic repertoire of various Classical composers, and the other on the music of Morton Feldman. I chose the former, partly because my thesis adviser's specialty was the music of the Classical period, partly because this seemed to be a relatively unexplored and therefore potentially academically beneficial field, partly because as a bassoonist I might have special insight into the topic, but mostly because at the time the UVic musicology faculty couldn't care less about Morton Feldman. Stupid UVic Department of Musicology (circa 1998).
At any rate, I spent a lot of time listening very carefully to Feldman`s music in the late 90s, and grew to love it deeply. Feldman is an American minimalist - a true minimalist, not a maximal minimalist a la Reich, Adams et al - with a profound interest in the nature of sound. Listen to his music closely and you begin to enter the sound itself, a sort of three-dimensional space that shimmers and vibrates, disintegrates and coalesces with the slight gradations of timbre and subtle combinations of harmonic partials. Some argue that Rothko Chapel* is his masterpiece, and I agree. I tend to hear it in terms of sound "spaces," with layers of rounded tones mingling with more angular ones, creating ephemeral, constantly morphing tonal landscapes.
Tonight, after parents or siblings or significant others have gone to bed, after the TV has been turned off and the books and magazines have been set aside, turn off the lights, close your eyes, and listen.
Preferably with these headphones. Bought them a week ago. Jealous? You should be.
Oh, and next blog post I promise to get back to all things pop/rock/jazz/blues/noise/folk/punk related. Some days you just can't ignore Morton Feldman, I'm afraid.
* Written in celebration of the opening of the Rothko Chapel in Houston and dedicated to the work of Mark Rothko, a close friend of Feldman`s and one of the great American abstract expressionist painters.
Over a bone-dry sample, a guiro coughed through a mouthful of dust, Tyler the Creator spits gristle. At its bleakest a glimpse of a better outcome: a life-affirming gospel-inflected rhythm 'n' jazz break. A false hope, the deathly, insistent percussion scraping to its bitter end.
I'm not quite sure what to make of this tune. It's shocking, but is it anything more? There's lyrical prowess here, and an interesting rhythmic flow, and a creative use of samples, but I can't help shake the nagging feeling that there is also something deeply childish about all of this. Petulant and childish. Like an angst-ridden teen eager to prove that his daily existence is more horrifying, more profound, more important.
Then again, Tyler the Creator is only 19 years old. Lots of time to grow as an artist. And I must admit that as much I harbor doubt about the artistic merit of this track I keep returning to it. It's compelling, to be sure, and much more interesting than the vast majority of commercial hip-hop. I mean, Tyler > Kanye, without a doubt.
There are times when a piece of music opens my ears to new ways of configuring sounds. It's not that tUnE-yArDs do things much differently than Owen Pallett or similar artists, at least from a technical standpoint. The use of performing live loops to create symphonic effects has become relatively common within the pop idiom over the last decade, likely in response to technological advances in looping software. The proof in the musical pudding, however, is precisely in how that software is used. This is where tUnE-yArDs excel.
I tend to think of Owen Pallett as one of the leaders in this field. Listen to him and you hear lush textures, sweeping melodies, grand gestures; it's all very Romantic. And I must admit that I believed that looping software was best used to this sort of effect, to create something symphonic in scope. At least until I heard tUnE-yArDs. When I listen to tUnE-yArDs I hear the musings of an "anti-Romantic": the music is wry and playful one moment, pointillistic the next, and gristly at the last. And it's completely unself-conscious. It combines elements of the blues and jazz and pop and world music in a funky stew. It's all very...modern.
tUnE-yArDs is the brainchild of New England musician Merrill Garbus. She began as a solo artist, but more recently she has used a full backing band to add even greater depth to her music. There is an interesting performative element here, too -- a full band provides the muscle needed to match her more full throated moments. And indeed she has a remarkable voice, with a finely attuned sense of phrasing and dynamics. Her vocals are almost always completely controlled. There are times when she reminds me of Ella Fitzgerald. Enough said.
And now I'm off to listen to her complete oeuvre. Back in a few hours.
Melt-Banana
Album: Cell Scape
Song: Shield Your Eyes, A Beast Is In The Well Of Your Hand
Seminal noise-rock progenitors Melt-Banana have been around in one form or another since the early 90s. Ichiro Agato (guitarist), Riko Yamamata (bass) are the driving musical forces behind the band -- both are technically proficient and both use extended performance techniques and an array of pedal effects to transform their sound in unusual ways. The results are invariably interesting.
As always with bands like this, I hear in Melt-Banana a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The bass riff in today's song is very cool, to be sure, and the guitar riff is freaking awesome, but neither is truly radical nor seemingly sufficient to create a viable song. Combined, however, they create an interesting tension, and the scream-o vocals add an appealing element of...ummmm...psychosis?
Their CD recording of this tune is clean and balanced, and I recommend that everyone take a listen. But it's the live performance that really gets my heart pumping. There's an appealing element of danger. I fear in particular for the camera person's safety.
Side project of Brooklyn bands Vivian Girls and Woods. Better than either and perhaps better than both combined. Not much to say about this tune: basically it's straight ahead garage-y rock. But sometimes that's all that's required. Although it should be noted they do sound a hell of a lot like The Pixies here, all the way down to the Kim Gordon-inspired backup vocals. Which is, of course, a very very good thing. Enjoy.
Deerhoof
Album: Deerhoof vs Evil
Song: The Merry Barracks
Two facts you need to know about Deerhoof: 1. It features Greg Saunier, my favorite drummer in all of contemporary music; and 2. Jack, my younger son, all of eight years old, cites them as one of his fave bands.
A prouder dad you'll rarely find.
I just spent the previous two hours watching Canada's federal political leaders duke it out. With words. It was, as might be expected from any televised political debate, just this side of ridiculous. Or sad. Or obscene. And as Harper smirked and Iggy grimaced and as all of them mantra-d their "talking points" ad nauseam, I felt a growing urge to hurl my remote at the television. Thankfully, Deerhoof intervened.
Deerhoof vs evil. Deerhoof wins.
And ya gotta like a band that appeals to little kids and music snobs alike.
Wait a sec, there is a third fact you need to know about Deerhoof. In doing a little research for this blog post I watched a recent interview with Dave Grohl. He cites Deerhoof as one of his favorite "new" bands. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Here's another live performance for those of you inclined to venture further afield. This is my favorite Deerhoof tune, "The Perfect Me":
There's obscure, and then there's obscure. Andy Shauf is obscure.
Shauf is a Regina singer/songwriter, in my opinion favorably comparable to Iron and Wine and Sufjan Stevens amongst the quasi-folk set. I first heard his music at the 2009 Regina Folk Festival and was absolutely blown away by the sensitivity of his guitar playing, his fine sense of melody, his crystal clear vocals, and his evocative and elegant style.
He has put out a full length album, Darker Days, and another EP, Waiting for the Sun to Leave, both of which are excellent and feature more polished songwriting and production than we hear on Four Songs. But there is a touching naivete to the latter, and it features perhaps my favorite Shauf song, "I Am Lost."
Our featured tune is the second of two from the below performance at a tiny Brooklyn venue. The audience is breathless here, as if expecting at any moment the tender, gossamer melody and whispered guitar to collapse in on itself. Please watch and listen to the entire video -- it provides a good sense of Shauf's best qualities as a performer, connecting to his audience with an aching melancholy reminiscent of Lyle Lovett or Nick Drake's quietest moments, not to mention insight into his appealing self-deprecating manner.
Why do certain artists or bands become superstars, while others work and create in relative obscurity? You can argue that Elbow does not deserve worldwide stardom, that the music simply does not pass muster. An untenable position, in my opinion, but there is certainly room for personal bias in matters such as these. What seems less open to debate is that Elbow should achieve worldwide stardom, that the music is both soulful and grandiose, both sensitive and bombastic, both jazzy nightclub and 80,000 seat stadium. It bears repeated listenings. My hand itches to lift my lighter into the cool night air...
And lead singer Guy Garvey looks like Ricky Gervais' lost twin. Which doesn't hurt. Or help. Hell, it just is. Garvey has one of the great voices in modern music, and he is a consummate melodist. He oozes - like crushed foil - musicality. His voice is supple, buttery, but with enough of a carefully modulated sandpaper rasp to veer round the sort of sameness that dooms Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby and a whole generation of crooners to the expectations of a contemporary listener.
There are times when Elbow borders on the maudlin. There are times when Elbow reaches beyond sensitive and musical into cliche and vapidity. And then there are times like this. Enjoy them now, before they win their inevitable dozen or so Grammys. You will say, "I was there, you know, before they hit it big..." Feel free to cite me as your source.
The irony is that recently I've been listening to more music than ever. I know, I know. As far as you're concerned I may as well be talking out of my ass. I mean, the proof is in the pudding, as my grandfather used to say. And, granted, of late there's been very little pudding around here. The fact remains, however, that not only have I been listening to more music than ever, but also I have been experiencing more music than ever.
But then it's that time of year, isn't it? Come July and August, Folk Festival Fever blazes through the granola-fed, the hemp swathed, and the bushy bearded sets. Hankering for a Che Guevera shirt to wear to the next family picnic? Come on down to the folk festival, where an assortment of revolutionary iconography emblazons outerwear of all kinds.* Eager to listen to shambling twenty-somethings busk their way through the Dylan discography with only a penny whistle and washboard? Well, you've come to the right place, sister!
Three weeks ago: Calgary. Last week: Regina. Two folk festivals, two vastly different musical and cultural experiences. Calgary is huge. Like, huge. Gorgeous location. Crowded as fuck. And the atmosphere at times leaves something to be desired, especially on the main stage where I was often left watching the show on two jumbo screens erected about 100 meters from the performers. One amongst ten thousand plus, my experience was often more like that of a stadium concert than an intimate community gathering of like minded souls. Regina, on the other hand...
Well, I love the Regina Folk Festival. The musical line-up is favorably comparable to the larger festivals, but it maintains a lovely vibe. Let me put it this way: there's not a chance in hell that I might reverse haggle for a piece of Marxist clothing with anyone in Calgary, but in Regina it's almost par for the course. There are still thousands of people at the main stage, but even arriving later in the evening, as I did, I was able to find an open patch of grass with an excellent view.
As an aside, did you know that folk festivals nowadays are not really "folk" festivals? There are lots of folky type performers, for sure, but there are equal numbers of what might be considered "alternative" artists and young up and coming rock/pop bands on the docket as well. In other words, if you're at all interested in new music, find your way to the nearest folk festival. You won't be sorry.
I wanted to attend Calgary mostly to hear one of my musical icons, the New York folk/classical/experimental jazz oriented Robin Holcomb. Holcomb is about as obscure a performer as you'll find, but I've listened to, and felt a deep affinity for, her music for over two decades. Imagine Sam Phillips bathed in luxurious dissonance. Or a magisterial, abstract expressionist Sarah Harmer.
I purchased her eponymous debut album on a whim. It was in a discount bin jumbled amongst eleventy-three Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer discs, on sale for a song due to a small manufacturer's defect in the casing. And she sure looked purty. And she had me by the very first track of that remarkable CD.
It must be said that at times Holcomb looked a little out of place in Calgary. She is now in her 50s and might best be described as matronly, and she was surrounded for the most part by lithesome youngsters. Nevertheless she is a regal presence, and I still found her crazy beautiful, even compared to the hipster set. Especially compared to the hipster set. She first hosted a workshop entitled "Some Fine Lines" which included another of my long-time faves Joe Henry** and one of the biggest draws of the festival, Oscar winning musicians (and actors!) The Swell Season, both of whom are characterized by relatively conventional story telling and relatively straight forward music. Not really Holbomb's oeuvre, and her smaller, haunting Apallachian-inflected tunes got a little lost amidst the bombast. But her second workshop the following day, aptly titled "The Abstract Expressionists," gave her ample opportunity to shine. She performed three of my favorite songs, and I was lucky enough to record the entirety of one of the gems from her debut record. The song is called "So Straight And Slow":
I will never forget that tiny slice of my life.
There were many other interesting performers in Calgary. I really liked the Billy Bragg-esque solo work of former punk, Frank Turner (skip ahead to 1:40 for the start of the set). Burning Hell, spectacularly unpretentious, kicked ass live. Vancouver band E.S.L. was the bee's knees (good luck finding any info about them online; no, they are not that shitty Japanese band). Also of note were Thea Gilmore, Timber Timbre and Ghostkeeper. And yeah, the big name acts like Stars and Michael Franti also performed, but in my opinion were almost incidental to my festival experience.
Phew! Alright, enough for today. I'll continue with more from the Regina Folk Festival tomorrow.
* I engaged in a fun little bit of reverse haggling with my socialist-inclined vendor. I asked him how much he wanted for a khaki colored Che print shirt, and he replied in mock seriousness, "Five bucks. What'll you give me?!" I laughed and told him I'd give him twenty, at which he looked me up and down and said with a wry smile, "Three for ten!" Viva la Revolucion!
** Guilt by association trivia: Joe Henry is Madonna's brother in law. Heh.
Midnight Oil
Album: 10,9,8,7,6...
Song: Power And The Passion
Back from hiatus. Immersing myself in music at the moment, digging most of it. Lots of blog posts to come in the near future. Thanks for your patience.*
But before we explore more of the good new stuff...
Laurel and Hardy. Bonnie and Clyde. Sonny and Cher. Two peas in a pod, all. To that list let me add our very own Stephen Harper and Yo-Yo Ma. Here the frown prince shows us his -- to this point extremely well hidden -- light hearted and mischievous side.
He gets high with a little help from his friends. Nary an ironic wink to be seen. This guy has some chutzpah.
Alright, enough tomfoolery. Listen to this. A little Aussie band called Midnight Oil with a penchant for social criticism and political activism. Which is cool and all but I like them cos their lead singer is a spastic bald giant. Check out in particular 1:35-1:45 when that great ranging ostrich of a man grabs a bouncer by the collar and tears him a new one for being too rough with an aspiring stage diver. You just can't fake this shit.
What does this have to do with our lovable PM Harper? Well, that spastic bald ostrich is Peter Garrett, who for the last six years has been Australia's Minister for the Environment and Performing Arts. So, while we get a passionless dorky ditty from our political leader, the Aussies get this. Incidentally, both performances took place within six months of each other.
Dammit. We already knew that Norwegians are cooler than Canadians. So are Aussies, it turns out. We're slipping, folks...
* Incidentally, thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion during my absence. Some great stuff there. In particular I appreciate the efforts of Scott and GC to get to the heart of Joanna Newsom's tune. Both of you approached the problem from interesting perspectives and frankly I think both of you came closer to the "truth" than I did. Hopefully we can continue to dive into the analytical waters on a regular basis.
Attention all guitar geeks: if you don't know Shugo Tokumaru you're missing out on something special. In short, Shugo is the man. Technically proficient and original. Great little riff in this tune, perfectly suited to his charming folk pop style.
Incidentally, this is another tune that de-emphasizes the lyrical component of songwriting. I'm not trying to make a consistent argument in this blog, but the longer I write about these songs the less important text seems to become. Heh.
Leonard Cohen. Sigh. I'm supposed to love him. He's an icon, internationally loved. And Canadian. "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah" regularly appear on "Best Song" lists. But... Jeez. I mean... Boring. Boring. Just... Boring. Beautiful poetry. I guess. Like, it's okay. But the music. God almighty. Sigh. Feel like half-traitor for suggesting he's anything less than brilliant.
Joanna Newsom
Album: The Milk-Eyed Mender
Song: The Sprout And The Bean
A friend likens Joanna Newsom's singing voice to someone who has suffered a recent brain injury. Me, I hear a constipated eleven-year old. Idiosyncratic, to be sure. But it is also, in its faux twee glory, well suited to her eccentric folk songs. Next time a film producer needs a song about the adventures of a candy-coated pink unicorn, Joanna Newsom will be at the very top of the list.
The music's pretty darn good too. The song lilts along, carving out a space between a-flat minor and B major, using the D#/E flat as an harmonic pivot point and playing liberally with the B flat/B natural tension, when suddenly Newsom springs on us an extended section that alternates between E major and C# major. It's a lovely little effect. Notice in particular the symmetry between the harmonic contours of the two major sections: A flat (G#)-B and E-C#, both minor thirds, one rising, one falling. Really quite beautiful.
Hope you enjoy it, and please feel free to comment on any aspect of the post, especially the analysis which was done relatively quickly and mostly by ear. That is, mistakes are inevitable. Let's see if we can suss out the truth together.
Bela Fleck And The Flecktones
Album: Left Of Cool
Song: Let Me Be The One
Bela Fleck: electric banjo. Jeff Coffin: electronically altered sax. Future Man (Roy Wooten): drumitar. Victor Wooten: bass.
Holy. Fuck.
Alright, a few things you need to know. First of all, Bela Fleck has been one of my favorite musicians for almost 20 years. He gained a measure of notoriety in the late 80s / early 90s for his virtuosic albeit completely atypical playing style. While a bluegrass element is almost always present, he also incorporates many other genres into the musical mix, in particular jazz, folk, funk, and pop. In fact, Bela Fleck and his band have received Grammy nominations in more different categories than any other group in history. Second, Roy Wooten created his own instrument, the drumitar, which is a SynthAxe rigged to play percussion samples. So he's the drummer and he's out front with the rest of the band. Pretty cool. Third, Victor Wooten is a fucking beast. I mean...wow. Just...wow. The best bass player I know. Lastly, Jeff Coffin is a multi-instrumentalist jazz phenomenon in his own right. Put 'em all together and you've got something truly magnificent.
The tune itself is good, but perhaps not more than that. I chose it, however, because it shows off the band's incredible virtuosity and musicianship, two qualities that often do not go hand in hand. (See Yngwie, yet again.) Coffin's solo is good. Wooten's solo is out of this world. Fleck's solo takes banjo in completely new directions. Wicked stuff.
Oh, and the band performed at the Regina Folk Festival two years ago. And I missed it. Godfuckingdamn.
The Weirdos
Album: (only released as a single)
Song: Life Of Crime
JK Rowling sends a manuscript to eight prospective publishers. They all say no. The ninth publisher, Bloomsbury, says yes. Harry Potter goes on to sell 800 billion books. The Texas Rangers sign baseball's best player, Alex Rodriguez, to a record 10 year, $252 million dollar contract. Texas finishes dead last in their division in every successive year and eventually trade A-Fraud to the New York Bloated Fuckers.
The line between success and failure can be thin. Hellathin, as the kids would say. Almost everyone knows Black Flag. Very few know Tenor Saw. Sheryl Crow owns three mansions and Lance Armstrong's balls.* Lissie owns a burgeoning alcohol abuse problem and an increased likelihood of contracting an STD. James Cameron is a gazillionaire. Richard Linklater is a severalthousandaire. Tenor Sax, Lissie, and Richard Linklater are by any standard the equal of their counterparts, and yet huge mainstream success eludes them. We should add The Weirdos to our list.
As far as I know The Weirdos did not release an EP or LP in the 70s and 80s. A bunch of singles, but no album. And like Linklater et al they are at least the artistic equals of other commercially successful So Cal punk bands from the late 70s. Our song of the day is one of the best of its genre, in my opinion: raw, brutal, great guitar riff, great lyrics, and James Denney is a charismatic frontman.
Bassist Cliff Roman went on to become an elementary school teacher. Heh.
* What's left of them, at any rate. Did I ever say I was above such tastelessness?
There's virtue in being first. Monteverdi is generally credited with heralding the Baroque period in music, and his music lives on because of it. But in fact, in the grand scheme of things, he's a lesser composer. He was the first, but others did it better. The Ramones were among the first to punk. (I've just verbed punk.) Others did it better, but The Ramones, well, did it.
Big Black were among the first industrial bands, and they made some of the most acerbic and confrontational music of the 80s. I didn't know much about the band when I purchased their second album, Atomizer, at a used record store. I liked the cover art. Within a few seconds of putting needle to vinyl, however, I realized that Big Black was something wonderful. The guitar work. Crazy fucking good. Brittle, jagged, insistent; the sound, as one critic put it, of shattering glass. The band was led by the great Steve Albini, best known these days for his work producing albums by artists like Nirvana, Slint, The Jesus Lizard, Helmet, The Stooges, The Pixies, PJ Harvey, Low, Joanna Newsom, and others. As you can see, much of my listening habits of the last 25 years have been shaped by his hand in one way or another.
Albini is also known for his role as a music industry pundit. He has been highly critical of the industry and its poor ethical standards, charging in particular that this lax morality filters down to the independent labels. On this topic he writes, "I don't give two splats of an old negro junkie's vomit for your politico-philosophical treatises, kiddies. I like noise. I like big-ass vicious noise that makes my head spin. I wanna feel it whipping through me like a fucking jolt. We're so dilapidated and crushed by our pathetic existence we need it like a fix." Albini insisted that Big Black's music remain untainted by the corporate music industry. The band maintained full creative control throughout their recording life and rejected several overtures from major labels.
In the late 80s and 90s other industrial bands did Big Black better than Big Black itself. But Big Black was, and always will be, the first. A virtue, indeed.
Oh, and they seemed as geeky and nerdy as Elvis Costello, David Byrne, and Arto Lindsay combined. Which is, needless to say, frigging awesome.
The Everly Brothers
Album: The Everly Brothers
Song: Wake Up Little Suzie
Right. Let's sum up, shall we?
Pros: 1. Nice harmonies. 2. Aggressive strumming. Occasionally. 3. They, uh, look like pleasant chaps. 4. Ummmm. Hmmm. 5. Oh! I remember. They made friends and influenced people in the early- and mid-60s. The Beatles and The Beach Boys cite them as important influences, for example. 6. A fucking killer guitar riff (very Chuck Berry) thrown into the mix. 7. Those chords!
Cons: 1. Boring as hell otherwise.
I- flat III- IV. Three chords that define a genre. Some of the best early metal is based almost entirely on those little beauties. Here is the most famous example: Smoke on the Water. One of the most recognizable songs of all time, and one of the most influential metal tracks ever. And how about this obscure little gem: Whole Lotta Love. Okay, maybe not so obscure. And yeah, it's not I - flat III - IV, it's V - flat VII - I. But that's just musical semantics. In reality it's just those chords yet again.
The earliest example of thosechords that I know of is in today's song. And yeah, they may have been hillbilly hicks, but they really rock out here. I absolutely love the killer effect of I - flat III - IV in this otherwise oh-so-pleasant down home country ditty. Devil's Horns in the air, folks. It's time for some metal mayhem:
Certain types of music should only be listened to at certain times. Opera, for example, is best ingested on grey, slightly depressing, cool-ish fall mornings, when the warm, rich tones and characteristic opulence are particularly filling. Summer evenings are perfectly suited to the clean lines of jazz. And the frigid dead of winter begs for the passion of punk.
And the Punch Brothers? Well, as far as I can tell they go down smooth in the middle of a hot summer's night with the sluggish damp condensing on moon-cooled windows. Poetic imagery for the win, baby.
Emo bluegrass? Is that what this is? Eh, doesn't matter. Tasty musicianship and a singer with pipes worthy of...ummm...Coldplay are a winning combination. Can't say I'd want to listen to this every day. Or every night. But this evening...it's perfect.
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