Thoughts From Around The Web, Click Album Titles for More Info...
Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project - 'Axels & Sockets' (Glitterhouse)
The track (Nobody's City) makes a roof-raising start to the project that
brings together Jeffrey’s old friends, fans and band members to keep aloft the
name of the Gun Club leader. Axels & Sockets boasts one of the most stellar
lineups yet, including Debbie Harry, Primal Scream, Mark Lanegan, Warren Ellis,
Gallon Drunk’s James Johnston, Lydia Lunch, Mick Harvey, Kid Congo Powers, Mark
Stewart, Hugo Race, Black Moth, Honey, Crippled Black Phoenix and Andrew
Weatherall.
Co-ordinated by Pierce’s former musical partner Cypress
Grove, with Sclavunos (and with little help from me), the recording pays homage
to Pierce by avoiding the cliches of the conventional tribute record. It
creates fierce new music out of song sketches, demos, scribbled lyrics and
leftover riffs that Pierce tragically didn’t live to complete before his early
death in 1996, while other tracks cover personal favourites from his
illustrious catalogue. - Kris Needs (The Guardian)
Matrimony - 'Montibello Memories' (Columbia)
One of the coolest things about Matrimony’s debut
full-length album Montibello Memories is just how difficult it is to
characterize. Just when C.J. Hardee’s mandolin and banjo starts to take a song
into rootsy territory, Jordan Hardee comes crashing in with walloping drums,
creating momentum that hoists it into the cheap seats. As soon as you get used
to Jimmy Brown singing anthems about the push and pull between hometown memories
and the need to keep moving on in one’s life, Ashlee Hardee Brown (Jimmy’s wife
and sister of Jordan and C.J.) takes over and muses poignantly about
relationship struggles.
There will probably be those who want to label Matrimony as
a kind of Americana Arcade Fire. While there is some accuracy in that
description because of the way songs like “How Do You See Me” and “See The
Light” soar to sudden crescendos seemingly out of nowhere, the comparison fails
to capture the innate warmth of this music, especially when Ashlee’s ethereal
vocals float above the fray. And yet the layered harmonies of the married pair
sometimes bring forth raw, complex emotions that resemble Rumours-era Fleetwood
Mac. -
The song “Folk Singer” narrates the lonesome lot of the
outmoded troubadour. Charlie Daniels wrote it before his rise to Southern rock
fame, and Johnny Cash and Nick Cave both cut rather grave versions. The
protagonist insists, with offish resignation, “All I knew to give ya / Was song
after song after song.” Which apparently wasn’t enough to hold onto his crowd.
Willie Watson may have taken on the role with his debut solo
album, Folk Singer Vol. 1 — the results of his laying down old song after old
song after old song at Woodland Studios, with Dave Rawlings behind the boards,
for Rawlings and Gillian Welch’s indie label Acony Records — but he’s rewriting
the storyline, ready to deliver a stout, standalone performance whenever he’s
offered a stage. That’s a surefire way to keep an audience plugged in when
you’re giving ‘em unplugged, antique tunes. -
Nikki Lane - 'All Or Nothin'' (New West)
“A feel-good record about feeling bad — iffy one night
stands, bad breakups, and raging hangovers are the leaves on Nikki Lane's tree
— All or Nothin' (like Lydia Loveless' outstanding Somewhere Else back in
February) suggests yet another trajectory for what we once called "Outlaw
Country." On the album's very best track, the straight-up provocation of
"Sleep With A Stranger," Lane struts like Jagger as she admonishes a
conquest that "you can call me anything you want to, just don't call me
after tonight." This is tough-talking, hard-living stuff, but it's been
infused with a welcome dose of 21st century sexual politics. Ignore this one at
your peril — Nikki Lane's looking right at you.” – Stuart Henderson (Exclaim!)
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NOTE: Not a single one of the other writers we excerpted from or their web-spots are associated with Global Texan Chronicles. Click the links for more on'em. Can You Dig It!
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