The Mulligan Brothers Songs For The Living and Otherwise Southern Routes
Studio outing number three for this talented band of musicians from Mobile, Alabama. The first two records were very well received and built up their reputation as musicians of some substance, both in the studio and playing in a live setting. The original line up lost an influential member when Gram Rea (fiddle, mandolin, viola, harmonica and vocals) left for family reasons but the remaining core of Ross Newell (lead vocals, guitar, and song writing); Ben Leininger (bass and vocals) and Greg DeLuca (drums and vocals) continued to look to the future and added a suitably different talent with Melody Duncan joining on fiddle, vocals and piano in 2016. The Female perspective adds a broader colour and nuance on vocals and playing style.
This record is something of a departure with the writing casting a wider net into the areas of rock and blues. Newell is a fine writer and his eye for a couplet is as finely honed as ever. The opening song, The Deal, is a love song that does not mention the old clichés at all and all the better for it!
Possession In G Minor is a clever ditty about the eternal everlasting search of the Devil for new, lonely and vulnerable souls, while I Need To Get Out talks about new beginnings and creating distance with the past. Divine Design is about a relationship that is out of kilter where one party is an emotional bully taking the other for granted.
I Know That Man is a story song about sweet revenge in an abusive relationship. Ghost Town rues the price paid for ‘progress’ and the choking of so many small towns across America while Not That Way talks about suicide and the confusion it leaves in the hearts and minds of those left behind.
The tour bus gets a song also with the excellent Roseanne, destined to be a favourite of audiences on tour, and a clever juxtaposition of groupie and road wagon! Great Grandaddy’s War talks about old attitudes and entrenchment forged from the Civil War years and a limiting attitude that change can only be a bad thing. It challenges and questions those who choose sides with a blind rage and self-righteous conviction. Duncan has a song included also with the sombre message of The Basement and the power of the deceased to invade our memories and thoughts.
The playing is superb throughout, the harmony vocals are a joy, while the lead vocal of Ross Newell is both sweet and warm to the ear. Arrangements stray from the simple Country/Roots formula to include new colours, under the familiar guise of well-crafted songs and performance. A real keeper.
The Mulligan Brothers Live From The Netherlands Southern Routes
This 13-song set is taken from a tour of the Netherlands in 2017. My copy has no information to suggest that a number of different nights and venues were included in the recording. Indeed, the muted crowd response and the lack of between song communication leaves the listening experience just a little sterile. What can be in no doubt however is the quality of musicianship that exists within this collective. On the back of two critically acclaimed studio records this ensemble has been stretching out into Europe in search of a wider network of admirers and with their quality they will have little difficulty achieving their goals.
Ross Newell (lead vocals, guitar, and song writing); Ben Leininger (bass and vocals), Greg DeLuca (drums and vocals) and Melody Duncan (fiddle, piano & vocals) deliver on all fronts with an engaging, easy charm in the song arrangements and vocal harmonies that augment the tight playing of all four musicians.
Ross Newell is the creative source in the band and writes all their songs. His voice is very mellow and sweet, with the occasional sense of the timbre of Dave Matthews in the delivery. His words are well crafted and composed with both care and confidence into some real gems. Cecilia is a story song from the Plantation times and tells of a tragic love that results in a walking ghost. Calamine is another story song, this time dealing with murder on the run, while the wonderful Thrift Store Suitcase looks at second chances, living with regrets and leaving the past behind.
The surprise is that included on this live set are a total of six cover versions – quite a number when all one wants to hear is some more of the band’s original material. I do believe that a deluxe edition exists with an additional 12 tracks, but the inclusion of six cover songs, however good, on this single disc is somewhat unbalanced to say the least.
Of the covers, we are given Stephen Stills, Townes Van Zandt, Grateful Dead, Thomas Dolby, The Steeldrivers and The Civil Wars. Some work better than others, given the Mulligan Brothers treatment, but the Thomas Dolby song I Love You Goodbye steals it for me with a superb arrangement and highlighted by the excellent fiddle playing of Melody Duncan.
The band are such a tight unit with Greg Deluca and Ben Leininger providing the understated rhythm for both Duncan and Newell to play between the lines. Well worth having in your collection but perhaps opt for the deluxe version to get even more of this great band in a live context.
Ben Bostick Hellfire Simply Fantastic
Any musician who saves his busking money in order to record a debut EP has my unwavering respect. This talented musician released his full debut record the following year and now we have his next project, as momentum builds towards World domination. Now based in Southern California, the co-production on this release is shared by Bostick and John Would (Warren Zevon) and there is quite an influence of the departed genius in the songs included here.
Bostick has a wicked & wry sense of looking at things and amidst a gumbo of Country, Rockabilly, Blues and Rock we are treated to plenty of drinkin’, hard partying on Saturday nights, lustful love flings, poor boy messes and just downright bitter and mean men - loners set to do you harm.
Titles such as The Other Side Of Wrong, How Much Lower Can I Go, Feeling Mean, Blow Off Some Steam and The Outsider give a very strong flavour of what is involved in the grooves here.
We have a Johnny Cash vibe on the cool, drinkin’ rockabilly of the title track. No Show Blues has the writer skipping out on his wedding day, while Work, Sleep, Repeat gives a sense of what he escaped from as the debts pile up and the feeling of living a trapped life starts seeping in.
Excellent band in Kyle Lalone (lead guitar, vocals), Luke Miller (piano, organ), Perry Morris (drums, percussion), Cory Tramontelli (bass) and Bostick on rhythm guitar, harmonica and lead vocals. Just go out and buy it…!
Lucia Comnes Held In The Arms Delfina
Based in San Francisco, this musician plays fiddle and sings songs in an Americana, Folk, Roots idiom. She has studied with many fiddle masters in the U.S. and Ireland. She also attended the Traditional Irish Music Program at University College, Cork, to study spoken Gaelic and sean-nos, or “old-style,” singing. Add to this a deep interest in Balkan/Eastern European folk music and a picture emerges of a dedicated artist to her craft. Simple arrangements, a sweet voice and understated playing.
All songs are written by Comnes with four co-writes and the production, by both her and fellow (multi-instrumental) musician Gawain Mathews, is uncluttered and bright. Songs about a celebration of rural life (On The Farm, Winter In The Mountains), join with a nostalgia for home and family values, (The Sleeping Lady’s Daughter, Matilde, Song For Mama) childhood and best friends (Mirabelle), loyalty, love and understanding (Good Hands, I’m With You, Morning Star), while a sibling in trouble is the context for Side By Side. A very pleasant listen.
Son Of The Velvet Rat The Late Show Fluff & Gravy/Mint 400
Eleven songs recorded live at three separate venues in Austria and America and featuring husband-and-wife team Georg Altziebler and Heike Binder, who are the core of this band that has been producing music since 2004.
Having built quite a profile in their native Austria, they relocated to Joshua Tree in California’s Mojave Desert in 2013 and have continued to follow their vision of what can be described as reflective resonance...
Their last release, Dorado, was a brooding atmospheric work of dishevelled beauty, ragged in all the right places but shining with a certain light. The vocals of Georg are lived-in and winking at a secretly held knowledge that informs his writing. Heike gently harmonises to add sweet to the sour and reminds in parts of the stripped back Cowboy Junkie arrangements circa the Trinity Sessions. There is a fragile beauty in the songs and the simple acoustic strum of Little Flower plays against the up-tempo groove of Surfer Joe, while a Nick Cave ghost haunts the arrangement on Do You Love Me?
Sweet Angela allows the band to stretch into a Neil Young work-out vibe while the meditative, slow-burn quality of Copper Hill is closer to the core of this band’s interesting sound. Well worth further investigation.
Vinny Clohisey Pistolero Self Release
This release by Irish musician Vinny Clohisey seems to have been in the works for a few years now. The very scant information says it was recorded in 2016 at Floodplain Studios in Clontarf but some internet searching shows that the actual release is this year, 2018.
There is no list of credits to the musicians who play on the 11 songs which is unusual, given that the promo copy I received has a colourful insert with full lyrics. This booklet also states that “the songs on this cd predate those on my 2015 EP”. Hmmm…!
In any event, here it is – an independently created project that seems to have had its spiritual home in the regular sessions at Darkey Kelly’s, The Lord Edward and various Folk clubs in and around Dublin City. The playing is very consistent throughout and a number of the songs stand-out, like the two instrumentals Sevilla and An Turas go dti An Talamh Naofa (The Journey to The Holy Land) for all our International readers.
The vocals are not quite so consistent and something of an acquired taste on some of the songs. However, this is a small observation and the pleasure in songs such as Pistolero, There’s Good Out There, Spailpin’s Song and Southern Ways, far outweighs any perceived pain. Kudos to all concerned.