For fans of Will Oldham/Palace, Smog, Cat Power, and Califone:
Wednesday, April 20
Warehouse Next Door
1021 7th St NW WDC
$7, all ages
doors at 8:30, show at 9
Franklin Delano (File 13 Rec., from Italy)
Marston & Ponieheart (Secret Eye Rec., from New Mexico, opening on current Bonnie Prince Billy tour)
Justin Jones (DC hillbilly soul)
Madagascar (gypsy folk dirges from Baltimore)
Franklin Delano Franklin Delano is a four-piece band that formed in 2002 when Paolo Iocca (vox, guitars) met Marcella Riccardi (vox, guitars, lap steel, mandolin). Soon Vittoria Burattini (drums, percussions) joined the band, giving the songs rhythmic structure, while the elusive fourth member Stefano Pilia (double bass, bass, piano) began adding classical sophistication mixed with an experimental flourish. The band recorded the basic tracks of the album at Homesleep Studios in Bologna. Then they traveled to Chicago's 4Deuces/Clava Studio where their friends Tim Rutili and Califone added layers of guitars, percussion, keyboards, and noise. Former Red Red Meat and Califone member, and producer of Modest Mouse and Iron & Wine, Brian Deck produced the Chicago overdubs and then manipulated and mixed the result into the final version of their second album, ??Like A Smoking Gun In Front Of Me.?
Franklin Delano has created a new and exciting view on American folk music. Textures blur with noise and haunting doubled voices emerge from a marsh of drones and reiterative guitars. On a solid foundation of drums and double bass is where improvisation explodes, lapsteel howls, and dueling male and female voices twist with interpretations of English words. Call it "the dark side of post folk," call it whatever? Their Italian perspective is unique in its way of transforming spaced-out blues into coherence. The band pushes improvisation into beautiful folk songs with their take on American folk/blues music derived from the other side of the ocean. Franklin Delano will tour throughout the United States and Europe in 2005, with support from File 13 and the label releasing their album in Italy, Madcap Collective.
Marston & Ponieheart US singer/songwriter Jodie Jean Marston's album is a varied mix of hallucinatory dream traversing, and backwoods country and folk-styled acoustic guitar that recalls Carla Bozulich's recent, somewhat controversial treatment of Willie Nelson's classic ??Red Headed Stranger.? Intermittently backed by electric guitar and bass player Bobby Arellano and Jasper Spiecher on flute -- who add an extra shade of grey to an already dark musical palette -- Marston's slow-moving ballads are stripped of all frills, her vocals soaring over the frugal instrumentation. This simple but highly effective technique puts the listener into a hypnotic trance that's virtually impossible to snap out of until Marston's ready to break the spell. Like the Black Forest/Black Sea record, this is another oddity worth tracking down from the Secret Eye label. (The Wire)
Jodie Jean Marston is a new name to me, but this young lady comes to the psych/chamber folk scene with a fully formed, vibrant voice. Her self-titled CD for Rhode Island's Secret Eye label is one of the more assured debuts I've heard in 2003. There's nothing flashy or pretentious about these eleven songs. They're stripped down folk-pop numbers with lots of banjo and acoustic guitars and only the slightest accompaniment (electric guitar, bass, and flute), a few well-placed effects and Marston's gorgeous vocals. The end result is sort of like a cross between Gillian Welch and the Iditarod, warm and plaintive as all of our favorite trade folkies tend to be, but the expansive sound sculpture of the opening and closing numbers hint at the otherworldliness that permeates the entirety of this disk. Fits in perfectly with the earthy ethereality of all of Secret Eye's releases. (Broken Face)
Justin Jones Folk music has always been a home to storytellers. So it's no surprise that tales of love, loneliness and drug abuse can be found on Justin Jones's new album, "Blue Dreams."
His Web site describes his brand of folk music as "Hillbilly Soul." The term accounts for his smooth voice and touch of country twang, leftover from his days growing up in southern Virginia. The new genre comes from the expressive music that has influenced him -- Led Zeppelin, Public Enemy, even the new movement in bluegrass.
"I'm influenced by any emotional music that can make me believe in what the person is singing about," he says. And his songs find that poignant place. Jones doesn't try to prove the sadness in them; he matter-of-factly states a situation and lets us draw our own conclusion. Though he says that most of his music is not based on true stories, his past -- filled with alcoholism and loss -- may have contributed to his lyrics. "That kind of thing can lead to a lot of stories," he says. (Washington Post)
Madagascar Chamber music, Yiddish folk, gypsy laments -- the members of Madagascar draw on these influences, and more, on ??Forced March,? their debut album for Western Vinyl. The nostalgic waltzes, melancholy dirges, and dance tunes on ??Forced March? are powered by a seemingly disparate collection of acoustic instruments (accordion, ukulele, musical saw, and glockenspiel, to name a few) that seamlessly mesh together in the hands of Madagascar. Haunting, wordless vocals occasionally join the mostly-instrumental mix, forming a music that is timeless yet unique, tragic one moment, joyous the next. It's like street music for some crumbled, forgotten city, folk songs for a long-extinct people. Engineer Rob Girardi, working at Mt. Royal Studios in the bands' home base and hometown of Baltimore MD, used a traditional approach in recording the band that makes ??Forced March? a sonic delight as well as a collection of excellent songs. The musicians largely played together in one space, sounds were captured mostly by room microphones straight to 2? tape, and very few overdubs were done. T.J. Lipple's ??purist? approach to mastering further ensured that ??Forced March? sounds like actual musicians, playing real instruments, together in the same room -- a rarity in these days of made-in-Pro-Tools, hyper-compressed albums. It's the first effort, but certainly not the last, from a new, unique voice in music.
??Like sitting on a rooftop in Zagreb, watching the crowds go by.? - Dave Heumann (Abouretum, Anomoanon)
