|
 Silent
All These Years
John
Paul Jones
The Thunderthief
(Discipline
Global Mobile)
After
an exceptional four-decade career as a session player, arranger,
producer, and (most famously) bassist and keyboardist for
Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones finally got around to issuing
his first solo disc, Zooma, in 1999. That robust, groove-driven
instrumental record proved (particularly when contrasted to
onetime bandmates Jimmy Page’s and Robert Plant’s post-Zeppelin
work) that Jones had indeed provided an important cornerstone
in the very, very heavy sound of the ’70s’ most influential
arena rock band.
His instrumental chops and heaviness factor confirmed, Jones
now offers an interesting view into his other musical interests
and talents on The Thunderthief, which mixes post-Zooma
sonic slabs with gorgeous acoustic performances, piano balladry
and even four vocal tracks— wherein JPJ unveils his appealingly
humble, Robert Wyatt-y singing voice. The diversity of the
material presented on The Thunderthief (which takes
its name from an engaging eccentric lyric penned by the ever-odd
Peter Blegvad) makes it a far more compelling, far more listenable
album than Zooma, which suffered a bit for its nearly
monochromatic intensity.
Highlights on the new disc include the Robert Fripp-fortified
romp and stomp of “Leafy Meadows,” Jones’ own exceptional
guitar work on “Hoediddle,” a transcendent, live solo take
on the traditional “Down to the River to Pray,” and the wonderfully
mundane “Freedom Song,” wherein Jones gamely attempts to get
his wife to run off on a spontaneous vacation with him, his
rambling entreaties perfectly matched by his peripatetic pluckings
on some unrecognizable string instrument. An inspired closing
to an inspired record by one of rock’s great, underappreciated
talents.
—J.
Eric Smith
Don
Chambers
Back
in the Woods (Perfect
Pitch)
Athens-based Don Chambers has created 11 raggedly vibrant
songs for his first solo album. He bears comparison to Tom
Waits, Johnny Dowd, Vic Chesnutt, and other post-Guthrie troubadours
with a penchant for the sound of barbed wire, broken crockery
and no-frills production values (which is not to say lo-fidelity,
but rather a shunning of overt sweeteners like reverb). His
rough-hewn vocals belie considerable control and work best
when the accompaniment gets quietly raucous. On the ballads,
such as “Roses by Your Bed,” Chambers’ singing sounds too
purposefully drenched in character. However, on the tag of
that song, his wordless falsetto humming lands a bulls-eye
in the magic. “Rob Me Blind” sounds like Springsteen in the
midst of a fever dream (this is a good thing), trading all
of the Boss’ tiresome place names and scene setting for small
angular details. The arrangements offer up some riveting juxtapositions
of instruments as cheap organ, vibes, bass, fiddle, cello
and percussion warp around Chambers’ banjo and guitar. Back
in the Woods is a fine debut—not a perfect album, but
it’s definitely pointing in the right direction.
—David
Greenberger
The
Meat Purveyors
All Relationships Are Doomed
to Fail (Bloodshot)
 The
Meat Purveyors’ bluegrass emerges from a dark holler full
of bad intentions and punk energy. For those who like to contort
the language to provide categories for genre-defying artists,
let’s call it “punkgrass.” They also have a penchant for offbeat
covers that, when wrapped in old-timey instrumentation and
stacked against nods to Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe, add
more than a hint of novelty to the proceedings. In the past,
the Purveyors have covered the Velvet Underground; this time
they get a whole lot more cutesy by offering takes on ’80s
hair-metal band Ratt’s “Round and Round” and “S.O.S.” by the
indomitable ABBA.
While it might be neat to hear an amped-up, bluegrassy version
of an ABBA song a few times, it certainly isn’t enough to
sustain one over the long haul. And this is a darn shame,
because when vocalist Jo Walston, mandolinist Pete Stiles
and company hunker down into a Meat Purveyors original such
as the heart-rending “Circus Clown,” they’re at their best.
But the Purveyors want to please all the cool punk kids in
town, so their tendency after such a heartfelt sentiment is
to speed things right back up to breakneck pace, or to stick
their collective tongue back in their collective cheek. Nevertheless,
when they start to ruminate again (such as on “Last Waltz”),
and when Walston’s and Cherilyn diMond’s voices once again
entwine around each other like dying wisps of smoke from a
morning fire in the Kentucky hills, all is forgiven.
—Erik
Hage
Loren
Connors
The Departing of a Dream
(Family Vineyard)
After releasing scores of other works over the past couple
decades as Loren Mazzacane and Guitar Roberts, The Departing
of a Dream is the artist’s first release under the name
Loren Connors. Connors has created a body of work that is
blues to the core, though without any need for 1-4-5 progressions,
and his open-ended pieces have often had the feel of Blind
Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”
(which itself served as the template for Ry Cooder’s Paris,
Texas soundtrack).
The title track is a hauntingly beautiful eight-part suite
in which Connors constructs a mournful landscape, using a
foundation of electric guitar and building over it with found
sounds, percussion and bass. For the most part, these added
tracks evoke the random shapes of the natural world, eschewing
the formal constraints of notated musical architecture. There
are moments of sublime beauty, as when his guitar, standing
alone, offers brief interludes before stepping back into the
gently undulating darkness of the more constructed passages.
Connors switches to acoustic guitar to close the album with
“For NY 9/11/01.” With its solemn grandeur, this five-minute
piece is as sadly mesmerizing as Miles Davis’ “He Loved Him
Madly” or various compositions by Henryk Gorecki.
—D.G.
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