Nine years on from Greendale, I’m excited at the prospect of a new Neil Young & Crazy Horse album scheduled for release on June 5th 2012 even though the track listing looks very weird.
It’s entitled Americana and consists solely of cover versions, mainly of old folk tunes that are so familiar that are usually regarded with contempt.
Songs like Oh Susanna,Tom Dula, Clementine and She’ll Be Comin’ Round The Mountain’ which as been renamed Jesus’ Chariot. Continue reading
The record that made Lambchop nearly famous was Nixon in 2000 – a sophisticated mix of Americana, soul and country rock.
But it was the more subdued follow-up, Is A Woman, two years later that I still rate as the Nashville band’s finest moment.
This was not treated with the same enthusiasm as its predecessor so, for example, we got a lukewarm Pitchfork review (although the critic did concede that it may actually be a ‘grower’ and that his piece might come back to haunt him).
Is A Woman was the type of quiet, reflective album that forces the listener to sit down and pay attention and these are not records that you write about with a deadline to keep.
I’ve been waiting 10 years for Kurt Wagner and his band to make an album with a similar degree of somber beauty and grace. Their releases in the interim haven’t been bad but somehow failed to reach the same heights. Until now, that is.
It is early days yet, since it only came out a couple of days ago, but it strikes me that Mr. M has the same melancholy artistry as Is A Woman – beautiful string arrangements, lilting piano refrains and Kurt Wagner’s gruff, half-whispered vocals weaving a magical spell. Continue reading
Thanks to the popularity of their current album, ‘ Veckatimest’ , Grizzly Bear are the latest band to challenge the top slot currently held by fellow Brooklyn-ers Animal Collective on of my New Weird America Last.Fm group chart .
They are not particularly ‘weird’ and, despite their name, there’s nothing fierce or threatening about their music. On the contrary, their richly melodic and meticulously structured sound could almost be called cuddly – more ‘Teddy’ than ‘Grizzly’. Pitchfork calls Veckatimest “compositionally and sonically airtight”.
Jonny Greenwood is a big fan and this helped the band to land a prestigious support slot on Radiohead’s North American tour in 2008. There may be a cultural divide between these two bands, but they both inhabit the more studious strand of contemporary music – a kind of swot-rock.
Grizzly Bear are ostensibly an Indie band, albeit one whose pop/rock sound covers more territory than your average chart combo. The choral interludes, for instance, would not be out of place on Phillip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi .
Animal Collective may retain the crown as number one New Weird crossover band but the widescreen pop of Grizzly Bear (along with similar groups like Fleet Foxes) emphasises how modern day Americana makes a genre like Alt. Country look very outmoded.
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