Caleb Elliott Weed, Wine & Time Single Lock
My introduction to the music of the Muscle Shoals classically trained cellist, Caleb Elliott, was his 2019 album FOREVER TO FADE. Described as ‘swamp art rock’, its blend of soulful summery tunes, bordering on prog at times, was a breath of fresh air and it was an album that I found myself returning to quite regularly that year.
WEED, WINE & TIME follows a similar musical template. Recorded at the Florence, AL studio Sun Drop Sound, Elliott teamed up once more with Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes, John Paul White, Lera Lynn) to co-produce the eleven tracks. They work their magic throughout, incorporating strings, keys and gentle harmony vocals in all the right places and also creating some dreamy radio-friendly gems. The opener Sweeter Paradigm and Sister, which follows, are cases in point. The former is an exceptionally well-constructed instantly catchy nugget and the latter, motivated by his sister’s struggle with cancer, is simply beautiful and the album’s standout track.
Echoes of Neil Young and Dylan Le Blanc were close to the surface on Elliott’s debut album and appear again here on the grungy No Telling. He’s equally at home dishing out more laid-back ballads Warships and Union Of Strangers or foraying into soulful prog on the duet Isolation with AJ Haynes of Seratones.
Maybe it’s the weed or the wine, but WW&T is every bit as trippy and funky as its predecessors and is an equally impressive and easy on the ear creation from one very laid-back dude.
Review by Declan Culliton
Dean Owens El Tiradito (the curse of sinner’s shrine) CRS
Recorded at WaveLab Studios in Tuscon, Arizona, and released in 2022, SINNER’S SHRINE evolved from Dean Owens’ sessions with Joey Burns, John Convertino and a host of their Calexico collaborators and players. Following on from that delightful suite of desert border sun-drenched songs, Owens has released EL TIRADITO. It’s a double album, one disc featuring instrumentals that did not make the cut for SINNERS SHRINE and another disc that gathers together the material that appeared on Owens’ three-disc release, THE DESERT TRILOGY EPs. Reworkings of two tracks, La Lomita and The Hopeless Ghosts, are also included as bonus tracks.
The legend behind the title EL TIRADITO is one of passion, lost love and tragedy and is marked by a ‘sinners’ shrine’ to the present day. The location marks the spot in Tucson, Arizona, where a ranch hand, following a passionate affair with the wife of his boss, was murdered by the rancher, who in turn is scalped by Apaches while on the run. The eight instrumental tracks that feature were written by Owen as a soundtrack of an imagined ‘spaghetti western’ movie telling the tale of those ill-fated events of unbridled passion, danger and chaos.
Standout tracks previously recorded on THE DESERT TRILOGY EPs and featured are the haunting Dolina, adorned by Jacob Valenzuela’s booming trumpet, and the quite stunning Riverline, with Owens’ by now trademark whistling working alongside slick guitar playing by Naim Amor. Others that make their mark are the eerie murder ballad The End and the evocative Ashes & Dust.
The quality of the material aside, credit goes to James Morrison and Luisa Carmela Casasanta for the striking artwork for this and, indeed, for all the previous album covers from the project. This is most likely the final chapter in what has been a purple patch in the Leith, Edinburgh, singer songwriter’s musical career to date. Having said that, I suspect that the lure of the burning deserts, the Morricone-themed western soundtracks, and those mariachi horns, may raise their heads once more in future Dean Owens projects.
Review by Declan Culliton
Leftover Salmon Grass Roots Compass
Credited as one of the principal forefathers of the burgeoning newgrass/jamgrass scene, Colorado-based Leftover Salmon have dipped their toes into every sub-genre of acoustic bluegrass over the band’s three-decade existence. The current line-up of the band is made up of founding members Vince Herman (guitar) and Drew Emmitt (mandolin), Greg Garrison, Andy Thorn (banjo), Alwyn Robinson (drums) and recent recruit Jay Starling (dobro, keyboards).
Joined by wonder kid Billy Strings founding member of The David Grisman Quintet, Darol Anger and the frontman of The Wood Brothers, Oliver Wood, the band reconstruct bluegrass standards on the album and put their individual stamp on songs by Bob Dylan (Simple Twist Of Fate), The Grateful Dead (Black Peter), Link Wray (Fire and Brimstone), Tony Rice (Blue Railroad Train), and David Bromberg (The New Lee Highway Blues). Much of this featured material is songs and tunes that Herman and Emmitt originally performed in The Salmon Heads and The Left Hand String Band prior to forming Leftover Salmon.
As you would expect, the playing is exemplary throughout and no more so than on the racy instrumental Nashville Skyline Rag, with Billy Strings adding additional guitar firepower, and the raging Riding On The L&M.
Readers already familiar with the back catalogue of Left Over Salmon won’t need any convincing to get on board GRASS ROOTS and with the ever-growing interest in the genre from a younger audience, the album is likely to spread their word much farther afield.
Review by Declan Culliton
Kassi Valazza Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing Loose
HIGHWAY SOUNDS, a four-track EP from 2022, was my initial introduction to the musical world of Portland-based singer songwriter, Kassi Valazza. That encounter, impressive as it was, led me back to her 2019 album DEAR DEAD DAYS. Both recordings were a gateway into the sonic leanings of an artist who seemed every bit at home pouring her heart out with a country ballad as she was executing a sophisticated and often cosmic-leaning folk song.
Splendid as those recordings are, her latest album, KASSI VALAZZA KNOWS NOTHING, raises the bar a considerable number of notches. There is a consistency and noticeable common ground across the ten tracks on the album that suggests an artist that knows exactly what she’s doing. The overall mood of the album is a trawll through the intimate space in the creator’s personality. Relationships are recalled, possibly with as much regret as fondness, leaving the listener to interpret the song’s often romantic inner meanings.
An anxious live performer by admission, Valazza cut her teeth on the live circuit as a backing vocalist with the late Patrick Haggerty’s country band, Lavender Country before concentrating on a solo career. Despite her stage unease, intense and spellbinding live performances and the quality of her writing have created a growing audience and interest in her work. This latest suite of songs perfectly captures what she’s about. The album’s title is taken from the name of Valazza’s studio band, TK & The Know Nothings, and their low-key arrangements are the perfect foil for Valazza’s calculated and gently delivered tales.
The isolation and loneliness of life on the road emerge in the postcard-type lyrics of Room In The City and matching apprehension and self-doubt populate Long Way From Home (‘I’d rather be lonely than be on my own’). Darkness also seeps through on the hauntingly lonesome sound of Smile. While much of the album maintains a consistent sonically-muted ambience throughout, the stand-out track, Watching Planes Go By, allows her band to drift off into a trippy meander mid-song, stretching the song to the six-minute mark. She closes the album with a cover of Michael Hurley’s Wildgeeses. It’s a fitting tribute to the free-spirited artist and poet who was an integral part of the Greenwich folk scene in the 60s and 70s and is revered by Valazza. It also mirrors the decades where the album finds its closest links, whether that is the classic folk sounds of the East and West of America or those of English folk at that time.
Far from a Saturday night listen, KASSI VALAZZA KNOWS NOTHING is an enthralling portal into the music and compositions of an imaginative mind. Backed by some very talented players and with a silver-voiced vocalist, it’s both fiercely intensive and deeply absorbing.
Review by Declan Culliton
GracieHorse L.A.Shit Wharf Cat
After an eight-year hiatus, Los Angeles-based GracieHorse’s return to the recording studio has been well worth the wait. Previously a member of Boston-duo Fat Creeps, Gracie (Jackson) has constructed a nine-track album with twang, edginess, and psychedelia in all the right places, bringing to mind the many experimental acts that earned the alt-country tag in the late- 20th century.
Rather than pre-meditated, the writing and recording process came about by happenchance. A nurse by profession, Gracie was recovering from a work-related injury and that misfortune, alongside the pandemic, found her revisiting previously written songs and also creating newer material. Calling on a number of L.A. players, including members of Cairo Gang, Ty Segal and Bonnie Prince Billy, she recorded the album at Jonny Kosmo’s Slime House Recordings.
Reinvigorated and with quite a lot to say, Gracie’s gritty vocal deliveries and sharp lyrics, alongside that crew of players, deal with multiple issues, from the grinding reality of survival in both L.A. and an unforgiving music industry. The gilt-edged opener, Hollow Head, laced with pedal steel and razor-sharp guitar breaks, is a defiant statement of setting free and taking control. Equally gorgeous are the country noir What I’m Missing and the banjo-led and even darker, Northwind. It’s not all totally avant-garde either, Backup Slowly is a witty barroom country affair and If You’re Gonna Walk That Way Son, It’s Only Gonna Hurt - great title – doffs its cap in the direction of Neil Young. Bookending the album, with the expressiveness of a movie score, is the twangy and galloping Words Of The New West.
The highest compliment I can pay this album is that I found myself revisiting it regularly after a few initial plays and enjoying it more on each listen. It epitomises what is so appealing about like-minded acts like Jim White, Freakwater, Blue Mountain, and others who, ignoring the mainstream, step into unchartered territories to create arrangements packed with left-of-centre diversions.
Review by Declan Culliton
Tapestri Tell Me World Shimi
Tapestri formed after the chance meeting in 2019 of two already well established Welsh bilingual folk artists, Sarah Zyborska (aka SERA) and Lowri Evans. Judging by this, their debut album, this was a creative match made in heaven. From the Everly-esque harmonies (so good that they could be mistaken for siblings), the sensitive intelligent songwriting, the memorable tunes, and the Americana flavoured production, it’s not a surprise that they are classed firmly within the newly coined Cymrucana genre.
Anyone who has had any involvement with the tyranny of domestic violence, either as a victim or supporting those victims (as I have), will quickly recognise that the upbeat title track is actually written from the viewpoint of the unfortunate victim. It expresses the conflicted feelings she experiences as she attempts to gather the courage to leave, wavering between staying or going, in this case spurred on by the love for her child - ‘you raise your hand/I raise a child/she deserves better than this’. Female empowerment is again celebrated in Waiting In the Background, an exploration of the changing role of women from the 50’s through to the present day.
As well as sharing vocals throughout, both women play keyboards and Lowri Evans also plays acoustic guitar. Evans co-produces with Lee Mason, who contributes guitars and organ. They are bolstered by Dave Walsh on drums, Jake Newman on bass, and Henry Priestman on Hammond. We’re introduced to the sweet pedal steel of David Hartley on the outstanding Save Your Love, a bittersweet song of unrequited love, with the protagonist attempting to let her lover down gently, ‘I will be your lover/but I won’t be your wife’. She’s A Lover, with its gentle acoustic guitar, upright bass and piano, celebrates the sassy older woman that we all recognise - she ‘doesn’t always believe your stories/ doesn’t always believe her own’ but ‘she’ll never leave you lonely’ and ‘she’ll have one more ride on the rodeo’. Hartley’s pedal steel also adds magic on several other tracks, including Genes, prompted by the birth of Zyborska’s daughter and on Atgofian/Sweet Memories (sung in Welsh) which was inspired by the emigration of Evan’s great aunt to the US in the 40’s, never to see her family or Wales again. Come Alive appears to return to the character we first met in Tell Me World, but this time she is beginning to blossom in the morning sun after a long period in the darkness, her release celebrated in the swelling and cascading harmonies. Mention must also be made of the other Welsh language track, Y Fflam/Open Flame, where the powerful feeling of being in love also carries inherent risk, like the moth to the proverbial flame.
Completed by a nature and music inspired cover art, this is an album I urge you to seek out and enjoy.
Review by Eilís Boland
JD Darling Looking Forward Thinking Back Self Release
Another hard-working farmer, JD Darling takes care of his acres and during that time he also thinks about the music he makes. He is living in Tennessee currently, though he was previously based in Texas and was born in Alabama, and as a result, has been listening to country music most of his life. He has a special love for the artists who released albums that came out in the 90s. The opening song on this lengthy sixteen-track debut album focuses on that era, as do some of the sounds on this album, though he is not strictly trying to mimic what made the charts then - and perhaps those albums would not do so now. Though that may be something of a debate, given that there is a growing interest in what now seems more of a golden age for music that, good or bad, was identifiably country.
We get into the heart of the album early on with tracks like Some Are Lonely Nights. A tale of possibilities which is given a suitable slow paced reading that highlights its poignancy. Much of these themes are based on personal feelings and observations. You Can Feel It references “the boys of summer out west” and their hopes and fears. One Way Or Another appears to be about a sense of duty out on the range or in other circumstances. Hell No (All The Time) is about saying no to change, no matter how well it is being sold or even, perhaps, needed. Other immediate standouts include I’ll Swing By Sometime and Hold On To Me in which Darling’s vocal delivery is notable. There are also times when the band rock out, which gives the album another direction that fits the overall scheme.
The album was recorded over a period of time in Nashville and from the fifteen musicians listed it appears to have taken place over a period of time, allowing Darling and co-producer John Kennedy the space for the sound and vision to find itself. One of the things that was important to integrate into the sound was the pedal steel. It appears throughout the album’s tracks and allows four different musicians to be credited with the instrument.
All the material was written by Darling, who has been true to himself, his surroundings, and to his music. With sixteen tracks there are naturally going to be favourites for all listeners but that doesn’t mean it can’t be taken in sequence either. These are solid performances from all involved who give life to the songs and make for a satisfactory listen. That allows for looking forward to a better time while retaining some of the real values of the past history of country music, especially for those in thrall to the sound of 90s radio.
An artist like J.D. Darling is unlikely to be looking to see his future entirely in the music business, but at the same time, it offers a balance to a grounded farm working existence, which in turn has informed his music and outlook. Like some other similar artists, he has put his heart and soul into making this album. That in itself makes it worth a listen or two at least.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Whitney Rose Rosie MCG
Canadian songwriter Whitney Rose grew up listening to, and singing songs from, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and Kitty Wells, which were the touchstones alongside Hank Williams, George Jones and Keith Whitley on the male side. It was from these she developed her own traditionally influenced sound. This new album is her fifth since 2012, and carries on her path to hone her songwriting craft. On this album, all but one track are self-penned originals, touching on the concerns of womanhood, relationships and locations that are steeped in meaning for the characters.
Rose co-produced the album with husband Michael McKeown and they brought in some familiar names to bring the right feel to the album with the Lisa Pankratz and Brad Fordham rhythm section, and Dave Leroy Biller and Rich Brotherton on guitars (and stringed instruments of different varieties). Warren Hood was the fiddle and strings man, while Michael Guerra added accordion on occasion. Trevor Nealon played keyboards and Bonnie Montgomery sang backing vocals. A top class team who excels througout.
Rose opens the album with soft, sultry vocals on the alluring Tell Me A Story, Babe. The only song not written by Rose but by Joanne Mackell follows and that is Can’t Remember Happiness, a song steeped in regret, as are many of her own songs as they come in the wake of a serious illness that forced her to return to Canada to recover. The songs Built My Own Jail and Minding My Own Pain relate directly to the idea of confinement both physically and mentally. The former is about a deliberate isolation from possible harm and the latter about the casual conversation that happens in bars while she listens but sits quietly trying to look after her own thoughts and worries. Vocally she excels and the band supports her sense of isolation.
By way of contrast she alleviates that to a degree by thinking of a Honky Tonk In Mexico. She wishes to be there to let off steam a little. More of a groove underpins Memphis In My Mind, which takes a similar mental journey to that particular place of memories. The sliding sensuous steel guitar that features alongside the piano and fiddle make You’re Gonna Get Lonely a statement of intent for country music lovers. Then, she takes on the need to feel some hurt in order to say I Need A Little Shame, with the organ adding some soul to that pain.
The album finishes with Barb Wire Blossom and the idea of something not seeming what it might be on the surface. A touch lighter and more whimsical is the final track. Again both highlight the strength and diversity of Rose’s strong writing and a reinvigorated vocal delivery. Mermaid In A Pantsuit is a gentle and aquatic sound that use the vocal and backing vocal to illuminate an atmospheric mood that has some less country, but equally effective, guitar lines.
Overall, this is a welcome return for Whitney Rose and quite possibly her best to date. Given the times that went into its making, it is that much more remarkable for what she has achieved, in the wake of what was undoubtably a difficult time. However this is an album that isn’t.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Joey Frendo Bound For Heartache Horton
From the get-go, this album from the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based artist draws you in, with this debut full-length album that has echoes of some mid to late 90s alt-country. A mix of country rock edges and red-dirt twang that is grounded with some organ and piano pedal steel, some of that provided by fellow artist of that parish, one Jesse Aycock, one of eight players who grace these story-laden grooves. Others include Paul Griffith on drums and Fats Kaplin on fiddle.The essentials of this are, again, a strong vocal delivery and some strong writing craft.
Witness the song (and single) Old Fashioned Country Singer which mentions Hank Williams in its evocation of the world weary subject’s life and times which, though hard, wouldn’t be changed. It has a sense of acceptance, that in despite of everything, this is the only way to go (out) and it is enhanced by some edgy playing. It is an immediate keeper. Sad State of Affairs is more straight up country and both tracks are stand-outs that let you know that this a serious set of songs played out for you.
Following on from pandemic restrictions and personal loss, Frendo channeled these events into some career making songwriting. The story of the accused outlaw in Leaving’ Eden knowing that “the sherrif’s on my track” fits the pattern of some of those tales that the best town might be the one you just left - for a myriad of reasons. There are ballads too that are rooted in specific places, such as Nebraska Rain, a harmonica featuring rumination on being down and out and wondering what might be life’s solution to this.
In a more considered take on one’s fortunes, he reasons that there’s Nothing Wrong With Silver, especially when gold is hard to find. The risky business of trying to find one’s place is laid out in Building On Quicksand, something that is always open to deeper consideration, but one often needs to start laying down foundations somewhere.
These are the everyday stories of everyday people delivered in a way that country music has done, when it’s done with a sense of honesty, since it first was recognised as a form. Frendo is not rooted in the past, nor trying to recreate a different decade. Rather, he has taken its truths as his own and made them a part of his journey to finding his own path, and BOUND FOR HEARTACHE is full of the human touches that make that journey special.
Review by Stephen Rapid
Caleb Elliott, Dean Owens, Leftover Salmon, Kassi Valazza, GracieHorse, Tapestri Music, JD Darling, Whitney Rose and Joey Frendo