Slinky “world music” with a distinctly American desert underpinning, yet incorporating Arabic tonal modes, Another Green World Eno-esque rhythms and an eclectic, dizzying array of instruments, acoustic and electronic, Califone’s latest album will literally leave you gasping for air as you vainly attempt to absorb even a pathetically small percentage of what’s thrown at you musically and sonically on what is a stupendous production and an even more remarkable recording.
This is a story you will like! About a decade ago former punk and jazz drummer Darrel Sheinman decided to start a new record label and release previously unreleased live recordings.
Elvis delivers the album opening “Santa Claus Is Back In Town” on this fall of 1957 release with bawdy, bluesly, burlesque-like delight. There’s nothing in his voice that’s even remotely subtle when he sings “Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight,” or any of the rest of the tune’s normally innocent lyrics. At one point in a break Elvis utters some guttural grunts not normally associated with Christmas no how! This probably had teenaged girls tingling and their parents repulsed.
"To deliver superior audiophile quality, each album was cut from the original analog master tapes directly to lacquers and pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl."
At first, the lingering melodies and stick-to-the-synapses catch phrases don’t seem to reach out and grab you like they do on older Steely Dan albums, but the grooves are deeper and more elastic here than ever and Fagen’s arranging abilities remain crisp, inventive and instantly recognizable even if you don’t take time out to analyze what’s going on to make them seem so familiar.
For once, all of the hype is justified: Kathleen Edwards is a genuine, fully formed musical force. Failer, her debut, delivers everything one could want from a record except great sound, but that one failing will not interfere with the pleasures to be derived from this 10-song gem recorded on a shoe-string budget. The 24-year-old Canadian mid-tempo rocker/singer/songwriter has been compared to Lucinda Williams, but Neil Young backed by Crazy Horse is more apt in my book.
Better late than never to discover this family of fanciful, faith-based music makers living in Clarksburg, New Jersey, a small hamlet located between Trenton and Point Pleasant on the New Jersey shore.
Leave it to Pure Pleasure to unearth great, but obscure titles like this, but more importantly, kudos to the label for having the nerve to put their money where their eclectic musical tastes reside and release it! And this one’s a double, making the enterprise twice as risky.