'Alone on stage, his picking sharp without being aggressive, he allowed every note to ring and do its work. By the time he had sounded the final chord, he had drawn everyone into the bar.'
From a recent review of Denison Witmer somewhere in England - not last weekend at the Windmill tho' it might just as well be. Pretty damned heartening to witness the incremental creep of awareness and appreciation for this guy. From a mere committed handful at this venue last time round to what can fairly be described as a polite throng now lapped up Denison's sincere, succint folk-rockery. Hey, there was even a bit of whoopin' to be heard after the concluding chord of 24 turned 25 and it certainly wasn't just reallyrather. The tour's nearly over now but there's a stop press addition this coming Sunday (30th) when Denison (along with notional tour headliners Charlemagne) will apparently swing by the Sensible Sundays all-day free session at Nambucca in north London (playing after 8pm)...

Elsewhere on that Windmill bill, the presence of Neil Halstead and most of the rest of Mojave3 in his backing band was surely as much a factor as Justin Rutledge himself in drawing the biggest crowd of the night. And the combination didn't disappoint, dishing up a sterling, assured set of twangsome Americana. It's not quite this blog's cup of tea but the album's sure to please anyone of a Gram Parsons persuasion...

...and it's released by Neil Halstead's own label, Shady Lane Records. Next up from this stable should be a debut full-length from Coley Park: "We're all very exited about Down at the Devillin Tree, its gonna blow a few minds with its psychedelic pop hooks and country flair". If the fact that they're from Reading doesn't dim your curiousity check them out when they play there June 25, opening Josh Rouse's pre-Glastonbury warm-up show at 21 South Street...
Coley Park | Shady Lane Records

'They are not a bunch of indie-rockers making a fun country side-project..this is not another alt-country album..this is true American roots music.' That'll be Portland trio Clampitt, Gaddis & Buck whose Nine tracks debut was engineered by Adam Selzer (Norfolk & Western, M. Ward, etc) and as such has to be worth a look...
Site | label | story

...ditto Magic wand, the new album from another of Selzer's gigs, Little Wings (due 17 Aug.) and, if it ever appears, a Selzer-produced full-length from low-key songstress Anamude...

Definitely out there already is the latest Matt Pond PA release, Emblems: 'The hooks are sharper and there are a bunch of really catchy choruses..call it some of the finest emotionally charged chamber pop you are liable to hear in 2004,' reckons Allmusic. If you're happy to wait, it's been picked up for an autumn UK release by b-unique (who also just signed Mull Historical Society)...

"I realize not only that I'd rather listen to Dreamer's Book than Rumours this week, but that I can imagine in time thinking of them as peers." Easy, Tiger! The War Against Silence takes a shine to the Mascott album...

...and anyone who feels similarly might also want to hunt down the delectable slice of Aussie wist that is Bilby's Life in the slow lane. Reinforcing the slacker idyll of it's title, the 11 songs suggest doing nothing much more strident than putting the kettle on, say, or getting a bit of sun on your face. Gently pointed domestic observations and a semi-detached sweetness pervade the spartan but warm sound; picked electric guitars, spare percussion and duo girl vocals carrying tunes like Saltfree, Molokai and Collingwood which sidle up and tap you on the shoulder. Indie pop with a faint twist of twang, it's a slender beaut...

...and works nicely as a counterpoint to the chunkier but no less chiming indie guitar rock of Where the words go, the second full-length from Seattle's Andrea Maxand. (Bilby's Seize my day could in fact slot right beside the nine tracks here and not seem out of place.) It's rare that sample tracks provided by the label turn out not to be the best things on a record and Ghostweed Press prove no different. Clear standouts here are The shape of hands, a super-smart lattice of guitars and kickass drums with a driving chorus which calls to mind late (lamented?) bands like The RockingHorse Winner and Sunday's Best, and the plunking arm-waver Bedroom window. Not far behind are Half-a-joke with more great clanging, driving guitars, the tougher riffing Everyone can see you and the U2-esque opener, Cassie's song. If you're currently deciding whether or not you really need the new PJ Harvey album reallyrather suggests you ring the changes and give Ms. Maxand a go...

Nothing much on here as yet but some kind soul has posted a couple of tracks from the forthcoming Rilo Kiley album More adventurous elsewhere...

...and there's more than a touch of Jenny Lewis (and the Mamas & the Papas, and the Beatles) about I feel love, an early offering from new harmonising folk-pop duo Jessica Vohs and Miranda Zeiger aka Willow Willow. Nothing released as yet but watch this space...

Ha ha ha ha ha..

'How do you respond, in words, to something so immeasurable you're hesitant to shame its angel-name by dragging it into the commodified realm of the record review? How do you make the words therein evoke something so raw, so rare, so poetic, so profound, so precious?

..ha ha ha ha ha..

'This sound seems of the breeze, of the trees, of leaves, earth, sky and light; of the sun; of the God communing only in the space between it and you'

..ha ha ha ha ha..

'Such enchanted incantation filling her throat with the voices of countless spirits, intoning fragments of folk who once sung in their own hallowed tones, as if each breath she draws draws on history itself'

..ha ha ha ha ha. Thing is though, he's not wrong. Anthony Carew waxes beyond lyrical about Joanna Newsom's The milk-eyed mender over at Neumu...

And you never know, you might get to hear a track or two on BBC 6Music in about six months time what with Tom Robinson just starting to play Sufjan's Greetings from Michigan and Gideon Coe having Denison Witmer(!) in for a session this Wednesday (19th). It's certainly all go for Denison just now - heck, the boy's even got his own video. He's busy touring Europe right now promoting Philadelphia songs and makes a return visit to The Windmill in Brixton on Sunday night as part of a super-value line-up. Yours for just 3 (as in three) quid:
Charlemagne | How Could He? mp3
Justin Rutledge | Special
Denison Witmer | 24 turned 25
Gentleman Reg | Give me the chance to fall
Apparently, Canadian up-and-comer Justin Rutledge will be playing with one or two members of Mojave 3 but if the sample tracks are any guide his compatriot Gentleman so-called Reg could give them all a bit of a run for their money...

And while Denison's here plugging a two-year-old record, this very week sees the US release of The river bends and flows into the sea from his full-band side project, The River Bends. Denison teams up with various Philly musicians on eleven 'more upbeat' originals and it's available from reallyrather's favourite retailer cduniverse for just $9.79. More amazingly still, they're selling the equally brand spanking new Matt Pond PA album Emblems for a mere $7.69! With postage that's a total of $25.47 or £14.40 the pair. Do what reallyrather has done and snatch their hands off...

Fantastik! That's Swedish for 'fantastic' and it's really the only fitting adjective to pin on Up against the legends, last year's debut album by Nordic nine-piece The Legends. For straight up disposable pop rock thrills this one gets it all just about right. With twelve tracks in a little over half-an-hour and all the handclaps and tambos you can handle, it's a bit like a Phil Spector-produced Jesus and Mary Chain album of Proclaimers' covers - like I said, fantastik!
Bought purely on the strength of the irresistable Make it right, reallyrather was fully prepared for everything else to pale in comparison. Stunningly, it doesn't. Call it our is a terrific opening statement of intent: 2mins25 of ringing guitar lines, dense background strumming, cracking tune and oh yes those mighty, mighty handclaps. There and back again, Everything you say and No way out all hit the same pop bullseye. Much of the record has a compressed, treated sound but best of the lot is Nothing to be done which zips along in a slightly lighter style and is damn near perfect. Summer's here and this is it's soundtrack. Legends indeed...

The getting of wist...

In scanning the music reviews some adjectives will shout louder than others. In reallyrather's case 'wistful' is always a signifier. This blog's record collection contains an inordinate amount of wist. Ordering by mail, reallyrather half expects to incur postal excess due to the sheer weight of wist with which many acquisitions are freighted. Though some might argue it's splitting hairs, 'wistful' rates better than, say, 'dreamy'. Happy/sad sides of the same coin maybe, 'wistful' somehow holds out the prospect of economical, honest reflection, of a thoughtful attitude whereas 'dreamy' promises a vacuous escapist drenching; that way lies languor, torpor.
Genderwise, female wist carries the greater tendency towards dreaminess. Back in Dec02 this blog flagged up a debut album by Lovers (from Athens, Georgia) featuring the songs of Carolyn Berk which walked the line between wistful and dreamy. With rather too many tracks doing that typically dreamy thing of going on a bit too long, Star lit sunken ship was kept broadly onside by amongst other things some stirringly deployed cello. It was obscure back then and an almost total lack of promo activity & website inertia saw that it remained so. reallyrather has continued to dip into it but has long since given up the info trail assuming that Lovers had quietly died. But lo! Out of nowhere a follow-up, The garden and the gutter, has this week emerged. And there are shows - more amazingly yet, they're in London! Probably just Carolyn solo, they are:
May 9 Bodrum Cafe
May 12 Big Note at Hope & Anchor
May 13 Vespa

Another album presently destined for unjust obscurity but offering a still more appealing take on the wistful-dreamy continuum is Mascott's recent second, Dreamer's book. Kendall Jane Meade is the creative force here but her sound is realised super-attractively by a core band with production assists from the likes of Adam Lasus (The Trolleyvox), Gary Olson (Ladybug, James William Hindle) and, most prominently, Al Weatherhead (Champale, Sparkehorse, Clem Snide, etc).
Loads of people do it but reallyrather would argue that it's rarely a good idea to use a longish, slowish track as an album opener. The case for the defence however could call in aid something like Bluebirds in heaven, a smoothly seductive sigh which stays crucially the right side of lush. Like several tracks here, it's also distinguished by some great-sounding cymbal percussion (kudos Jud Ehrbar the drummer and Mr Weatherhead). The title track is pure strummy loveliness with backing vocals which are as gorgeously just-so as you might expect from people with names like Phoebe Summersquash and Rainy Orteca.
A Dave Derby co-write, Turn on / turn off picks up the pace a bit with some nicely kicking drums and a gnarled guitar sound which also recurs later on, most successfully on the wall-of-sound closer, Song from a dream. But the stars of the show are the scintillating Kite which has a fittingly airborne feel, Meade's gliding vocal riding brisk cymbal & rimshot percussion while raindrop guitar notes splash down, and The write-up which features some of the best, most personal-sounding lyrics here:

I can't see a thing today
You know I've got a near-sighted mind
But I'm not blind

Dreamer's book dips into ordinariness once or twice but the best moments' bell-like clarity and Meade's up-close vocals and understated personality make this a single thumbs-up. You don't need to hear it but you'll like it if you do...
Mascott | Red Panda Records

Pernice Brother Thom Monahan is another who crops up in the credits on Dreamer's book. He's also produced the debut 'tender and accessible musings' of Californian 'psych-folk warblers' Vetiver. Find out for yourself when they do a little Rough Trade in-store 5pm Wed May 12. If you can't be bothered there's more on their sounds here. So, Vetiver's here, Devendra Banhart's here - surely their mutual friend (and best of the lot of 'em, quite frankly) the captivating Ms Newsom can't be far behind?

It's raw, apparently, and death-obsessed. It's certainly Texan and it's seems likely to be last we'll ever hear from the magnificently ragged Little Grizzly. The final album When It Comes An End, I Will Stand Alone is set for release on Woodson Lateral Records June 22...

...and who can fill the void? Maybe Austin's Lil Cap'n Travis, slightly more classic pop-inclined but still unmistakebly Texan. New album In all their splendor is just out on Glurp...
Lil Cap'n Travis | Glurp

And finally, see/hear M. Ward in session earlier this week over at KCRW...