Once upon a time country music was a cross between cornpone and old-time hill music. Caleb Klauder and Reeb Willms take us back to those days on Gold in Your Pocket. “He’s Gone” is a flat-picked song with splashes of old time fiddle full of guitar breakouts and 1950s ambience. “Shame Shame Shame” is straight out the Wheeling Jamboree with walking bass and some rapid-fire mandolin. Klauder and Willms hail from Washington State and now live in Portland, Oregon, but songs like “Too FarGone” have a decided Appalachian vibe. Check out the pedal steel and the lyrics of “Gold in Your Pocket” and you’ll know right away that these artists draw more from the past than the stadium rock with a twang that is today’s country music. They do it well, but is this what country audiences want these days? I can say for sure, but Klauder and Willms are a nice change of pace.
Effie Zilch is the name of a San Francisco-based collaboration between Evanne Barcenas and Grammy-winning songwriter/producer Steve Wreyman. On their seven-track EP Multitudes they evoke quite a few other acts, most notably Delaney and Bonnie and JJ Cale. Barcenas has a strong, smoky voice as you can hear on the blues-influenced “Prayin’ Amos.” “One Hundred Years” is quiet and folky, but she airs it out on “Only Fools” like a soul queen and Wryeman lets it rip on guitar. I don’t know their back catalogue, but I note they are often billed as a “rock” band. To my ear, though, Multitudes is more bluesy. Plus, their song “Carousel” would be at home in a honkytonk bar.
If you really want some rock n’ roll, check out the new record from English actor/musician Michael Des Barres. Its title might sound familiar: It’s Only Rock n’ Roll (But I Like It). It is, of course, the title of a 1974 hit from The Rolling Stones. Des Barres' new project is of 1970s cover songs. Baby Boomers have the new Bob Dylan film, so it’s only fair that Gen X gets its own nostalgia trip. Des Barres shreds some chords on “Search and Destroy” (The Stooges). You’ll also hear “Love is the Drug” (Roxy Music), though Des Barres’ voice bottoms out in a few places, and David Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes.” He’s better on Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.” Des Barres can still cut wood with his axe but, he’s 76, not 18 and not a young dude. He can shout it out and has a remarkable amount of power for doing so, but he resorts to spectacle and showmanship when he slips out of mid-range tones. That said, he’s probably better at singing 70s’ songs that aging Xers singing along to their car radios to the golden oldies.
The band Yarn formed in Brooklyn and is now based in North Carolina. It’s a collection of hardworking road warriors who play 170 gigs a year, have 11 albums, yet somehow are relatively unknown. On Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive Yarn play country, rock out, and sometimes venture into folk music. Yarn’s lineup is both stable and fluid. It is the brainchild of vocalist/guitarist Blake Christiana and includes drummer Robert Bonhomme, and bassist Rick Bugel. Yet is also includes a rotation of electric guitarists, including Andy Falco (Infamous Stringdusters), Matteo Joseph Recchio (Heavy Peace), and Joel Timmons (Sol Driven Train). The album’s title is embedded in the song “These Words,” a sort of country-meets-rock song about being down and out–I lost everything when I lost my mind–and makes an appeal to heaven in the way country songs are prone to do. Christiana has a soothing voice, but the band can bring it. “Turn Off the News” is somewhat evocative of a chill Allman Brothers. It’s probably good that Yarn is now in North Carolina, as they currently have a Southern rock vibe. But they retain a bit of Brooklyn ‘tude.”Play Freebird” is a serious song, but one can’t help but think there’s a bit of satire aimed at the drunken idiots who yell out for a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover at concerts. There might be too much midrange music on this album, but Yarn is a band worth knowing.
Les Arrivants are a Montreal trio that play classical Arabic and Persian music plus Argentine tango. In keeping with Montreal’s vibrant world music and jazz scenes, the band–Abdul-Wahab Kayyali (oud), Amichai Ben Shalev (concertina-like bandoneon and Hamin Honari (percussion)–are more into precision than attempts at middlebrow arrangements. This is evident in the title track of Toward the Light. The same is true of tangos such as “Bagelissimo,” or on up-tempo compositions such as “City of Ashes.” If you’ve never heard an oud, listen to the last composition. The oud seems as if it was invented to render introspective and melancholy music. Search for some of the trio’s live performances to experience their focus and musicianship in context.
Kylie Fox draws Joni Mitchell analogies because she’s Canadian and has a jazz soul. She also gets compared to Kate Bush because she’s prone to being unorthodox. Mainly there’s a lot going on inside her musical canvas. As you can see in her official video of “Brandi Baby,” Fox is filled with youthful insouciance and, as you can hear, she has a serious set of pipes. If you’re not convinced, try her title track "Sequoia” It’s an odd hybrid that could be a paean to nature, a warning to preserve it, a backdoor love song, or all three, but there’s no question of Fox’s command of it. “Alberta” is another tree song and why not, young folks these days have a far healthier view of the environment than most of their elders. Besides, I kind of like a singer who can sing about Alberta and an “Armadillo” on the same record. Plus, there’s got to be some synchronicity going on; Joni Mitchell grew up in Saskatchewan and Neal Young in Manitoba. That’s all three prairie provinces folks. And, yep, it’s also a forced analogy! Watch for Kylie Fox; I have a feeling we will be hearing from her.
Rob Weir
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