Dar Williams Hummingbird Highway Righteous Babe
The thirteenth album from New York-born singer, songwriter, teacher, and playwright Dar Williams finds her in a typically expressive mood as she contemplates the unrelenting pace and variations of modern living.
Williams’ characters are often complex, dealing with their own struggles and insecurities, and two songs particularly stand out in this collection. In a reversal of typical roles, the title track finds a young child attempting to support her troubled parent. Similarly, the quite stunning, both lyrically and musically, Secret Mountain tells of the internal struggles of a monk endeavouring to remain faithful to his vocation. The album closer, Olive Tree, considers the precarious times we live in and recalls the planting of an olive grove by scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1913, as well as the optimism that this implied.
Despite the troubled times and uncertainty that often surface, Williams also includes some light-hearted and breezy moments. Tu Sais Le Printemps (‘I'll throw this new dress on, the sun's coming through. I'll walk to the square for you’) is a reminder that better times invariably lie ahead, and also included is the Richard Thompson-written I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Equally impressive and inspired by her friend Maryland US representative, Jamie Raskin, Williams composed the ‘state song’ Maryland, Maryland. Sounding like a traditional old-timey folk song that has been around forever, Put the Coins on His Eyes features backing vocals by Daisy Mayhem.
Produced by Ken Rich (Ani DiFranco, The Gutter Twins) and Dave Chalfant, HUMMINGBIRD HIGHWAY is another fine chapter in Dar Williams' attempt to make sense of the world we currently live in, and it should be given the fullest attention, from start to finish, that it richly deserves.
Declan Culliton
Dylan Earl Level-Headed Even Smile Gar Hole
Country crooner, storyteller and all-around entertainer, Dylan Earl’s fourth album ticks all the boxes that sets the Louisiana-born artist apart from the majority of regular country singer-songwriters. Like many of his peers, he can craft fine songs and lend his trembling, twangy voice to them, but there’s also a brutal honesty to his writing as he reports on a decade-long career and the inherent struggles that come with it. The icing on the cake is the injection of humour built into much of his work.
That self-deprecating wit raises its head two tracks in on Earl’s latest album. Get in the Truck may have a George Jones sound to it, but that’s as glamorous as it gets. No doubt autobiographical, it recounts times when driving and sleeping in his van was the norm, as he moved from town to town to perform. Visiting a similar territory, the title track is a ‘note to himself’ to keep on keeping on, despite the burdens that often dominate his chosen career.
Earl spent his youth in Arkansas, and he recalls the highs and lows of learning his trade there on the brooding Little Rock Bottom, as well as the Jimmy Driftwood-written melancholic old-timey country ballad, White River Valley. The simple pleasures of life, despite the world crashing down on top of him, is the backstory to the tongue-in-cheek Lawn Chair.
Earl is in fine voice in his latest album; his baritone vocals have a genuine outlaw country timbre, and he has gathered some fine players to turn out his most accomplished album to date. Among them were Grady Drugg on guitar, Grant D’Aubin and Chris Wood on bass, Hamilton Belk on dobro and pedal steel, and Dick Darden on drums and percussion. Fellow troubadours Willie Carlisle and Jess Harp added backing vocals on White River Valley. Closing the record is a cover of labour organiser and folk singer Utah Phillips’ Rock Me To Sleep, with lyrics that could apply to so many artists struggling to get by (‘I’m tired of your big operators, I’m tired of your music machine. I’m tired of playing for nickels and dimes, and the times are always so lean’).
Steering clear of the standard avenues, and in a similar vein to Robbie Fulks, Dylan Earl approaches country music from the back door. He’s never going to be a pro-forma country artist; that’s what makes his work so innovative and enjoyable, and he has certainly achieved that once more with this record.
Declan Culliton
The Third Mind Right Now Yep Roc
‘Everything about this record is intuitive, it’s five musicians walking a tightrope, improvising in dialogue with each other and finding the songs in real time,’ explains Dave Alvin, describing the third studio album by The Third Mind, the band he co-founded with bass player Victor Krummenacher in 2018. Alongside those two veterans, the band consists of guitarist and pedal steel player David Immerglück (Counting Crows, John Hiatt, Monks of Doom, Camper Van Beethoven), drummer Michael Jerome (Richard Thompson, Better Than Ezra, John Cale), and the final piece of the supergroup line-up and jigsaw, vocalist Jesse Sykes.
The recording format for RIGHT NOW followed a similar pattern to their previous albums, selecting a number of songs they consider classics and spending a few days in the studio reworking them instinctively. This time around, they spent four days at 64 Sound Recording Studio in Los Angeles, marking their third time in a recording studio. They recorded a seven-track album, comprising six covers and one original song written by Alvin and Sykes, titled "Before We Say Goodbye." Guesting on piano was multi-instrumentalist Willie Aron alongside the band’s five core members.
The traditional murder ballad Pretty Polly is transformed from Ralph Stanley’s racy, three-and-a-half-minute old-timey version into an eight-minute reconstruction that wholeheartedly matches the song's grisly subject matter. Darkness, Darkness retains the folky intro of The Youngbloods’ 1969 recording before morphing mid-song into a whirlwind jam of crashing drums and spacey guitar breaks. Shake Sugaree, written by Elizabeth Cotton and Brenda Evans in the mid-1960s, has been covered by several artists, including Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, and Rhiannon Giddens. The playful song, written about a simple dance party, is given a makeover not unlike those renditions but embellished with a side of psychedelia.
Richard Fariña, the New York-born folk singer who died tragically in a motorcycle accident at the age of twenty-nine, is represented by the inclusion of Reno, Nevada. Alvin joins Sykes on lead vocals on a straightforward electric blues arrangement of the song. The previously referenced original inclusion, Before We Say Goodbye, has Sykes' stamp firmly on it. Haunting and beautifully melodic, it recalls her writing and collaborations with her band, The Sweet Hereafter. They breathe new life into their edgy reworking of the Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and Nick Gravenities-written Reap What You Sow, and bookend the album with their most relaxed inclusion. Dismantling the saxophonist Ferrell Lee Sanders (aka Pharoah Sanders) and Leon Thomas penned jazz song The Creator Has A Master Plan, they refashion it into a bluesy eight-minute romp. Sykes' sleek vocals contrast Thomas’s warbling vocal delivery on his original cut, adding another dimension to a classic song.
What initially kicked off as a one-off experiment by Alvin and Krummenacher continues to grow legs. Few, if any, are presently doing anything approaching the spontaneous and unrehearsed psychedelic rock that The Third Mind excel in. Long may that last.
Declan Culliton
Dallas Burrow The Way The West Was Won Forty Below
An impressive statement of growth and development from the singer/songwriter on his fourth album. There is an undoubted debt to the likes of Marty Robbins in his gunfighter ballads era. While in recent times, there have been a number of performers who are inspired by and often live the real-life experiences of ranching, rodeo, and roustabouting, Burrow's songs, as the title indicates, deal with something more legendary and mythical in some ways. Like the occasional well-realised western-themed television series rooted in the past, Burrow’s titles, such as Justice In The West or the title song, tell tales of frontier towns and the wider lawless territories.
This is, in the main, an album of acoustic-based arrangements that are deft and decisive, produced by Lloyd Maines with his usual understanding and production values. Pat Manske is the supportive engineer (and long-time cohort of Maines) and is also present throughout, providing the percussion and drum parts. Maines brings his multi-instrumentalist talents to each track, playing dobro, banjo, bass, acoustic and baritone guitar as well as steel guitar. The fiddle is also prominently used and played by either Katie Shore or Brian Beken. Added to that, when you include Bukka Allen on accordion and on one track the trumpet of Kullen Fox and the harmonica of Terri Hendrix, you have the ideal posse to chase these songs to their final destination.
That is in no way to diminish the major contribution of Burrows himself. His assured and captivating vocals, acoustic guitar and his incisive songwriting - on all but two of the thirteen songs (Streets Of Dodge is by Fred Horton and Brian Mintz, while Indian Song was written by Mike Burrow) - are a demonstration of a growing ability and assuredness in his craft. There are many highlights on the album, and the vocal guests are well chosen from the opening pairing with like-minded influence Ray Wylie Hubbard on Read ‘Em And Weep. A song that easily would fit into Hubbard’s lyrical ethos. The next track, Colorado Bound, features another stalwart addition in the person of Kelly Willis, who offers a well-observed gender balance in duet form. Banjo and fiddle are to the forefront of Disappearing Ink, a song about a man and his roguish ways. The accordion works well to enhance the atmosphere in the unfaithful women murder ballad Black Rock Desert Blues, “If you’d quit your messing around, I wouldn’t have had to strike you down.” Of course, this is told from one person’s point of view, a person who may well have been just as guilty in his lifestyle.
The overall theme is revealed in the interesting story song Justice In The West, which tells the story of a man who becomes a lawman in lawless times. Killing was a way of life for such individuals in those times. The aforementioned Streets Of Dodge outlines a man who has already lost everything when he finds the woman of his affections has formed a new alliance. The consequences of this are being “shot to the sand” and moving on with nothing after losing his loving bride. The use of the trumpet is certainly scene-setting for Tornado, a tale of a black cowboy and his horse, told from the horse’s viewpoint. There is another fine vocal pairing for the title track when Jim Lauderdale adds his distinctive voice. This is perhaps one of the real standouts here, with its twangy guitar (courtesy of Maines) and strong, expressive lyrics. This quartet of songs forms, in many ways, the heart and soul of the album. Delivered with a production and the finely-honed arrangements that feel as if they could have been played in a similar fashion back then in the 1860s.
The remaining five tracks also have their merits and make for a well-rounded and rewarding album. Especially When the Cowboy Rides, offering a justification for his ever-wandering and moving-on lifestyle. Fiddle is again effective with the steel guitar instrumentation. The album ends, fittingly, with Cowboy’s Prayer, which begins with a more stripped-back arrangement that slowly builds up with the addition of fiddle and accordion, also highlighting Burrow’s convincing vocal delivery. The result is one that not only is the standout in Burrow’s catalogue to date but also very much a strong contender as one of the year’s best.
Stephen Rapid
Mason Jennings Magnifier Loosegrove
A very stripped down album from the prolific Mason Jennings who delivers eight acoustic songs played on guitar and piano. It’s the twentieth album in the career of this fine songwriter and his debut album first announced him back in 1997. Based in Minneapolis Jennings has developed a musical partnership with Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam fame. Gossard has produced a number of previous albums for Jennings and they also play in a side project together called Painted Shield that has released three albums to date.
The album starts with Joy In the Face Of It All and Jennings is celebrating mother nature and the quiet constancy that it represents in terms of hope. Dreams and living in the light of each day are also part of Jennings being able to ‘Laugh in the face of it all.’ It’s a homespun philosophy of fear nothing. Feathers, Blood, and Bone channels a sense of mystery and asks that any hidden force makes itself known to assist in the struggles that life presents. There is so much that we take on good faith and in the hope that things will work out over time.
The song Don’t Change is a prayer to the enduring power of love and the relationship with his wife that brings such a sense of solace and security. Castles is much about childhood and the freedom to dream, in spite of what the reality of the world may have been enduring ‘Children take their sorrow and turn it into light.’ Blood Red Sun is something of a departure in that it tracks the life of an outlaw on the run. Perhaps it’s written as a metaphor for the way in which we try to hide away from the consequences of our actions as a society. The use of snare drum adds a heavy beat as the stark reality of a reckoning beckons; it could be the reality of global warming in the image of a blood red sun?
Changing the mood is Little Yellow Flowers even if it places the singer by the sea feeling lonely over the absence of a girl from his past. Fingerstyle acoustic guitar and piano ease the pain felt . Our World Is Ending (And She Don’t Care) is a loss of hope in the way the earth is turning, expectations dashed and dreams lost. Perhaps the planet has given up on humankind, maybe it’s a loved one that is running low on faith for the future, or it could well be our belief in a deity above who has turned her back on us and our incessant squabbling – God depicted as a woman?
It’s always nice to have different interpretations on song meanings, whether they were written as simple fragments of thought or indeed deeper meaning vignettes on life. The final song is Seasons and again there is a sense of drifting aimless ‘I feel numb and overwhelmed, afraid of what’s in store.’ In trying to save our planet maybe the song cycle returns to the opening track and we realise that we have to indeed ‘strive for joy in the face of it all.’ An intriguing and insightful album, gentle yet strong in the vulnerability displayed. Certainly worthy of your time and delivering great songcraft.
Paul McGee
Robert Scheffler Truce Self Release
New York City is home to this singer songwriter who makes a welcome return to the music industry after a long hiatus. It was as part of original band A Million Pieces that saw Scheffler earn his spurs as a regular musician on the local scene. Two album releases later, he was given the opportunity of working as a research editor and writer for a national magazine and this turned into a full time career, given the better prospects of earning a steady living wage.
However, the pull of music never quite went away completely and over the years Scheffler found himself drawn back to the urge to write songs again. For this album he decided to compose the basic songs at his home space, playing instruments that he felt competent on, with guitars, keyboards and ukulele featuring. He then brought the songs to Scott Anthony (Beastie Boys, The Feelies) at Storybook Studios in New Jersey. Together they added what was required to finish the songs and the results are to be found in the eleven tracks included on this new album.
The sound is very bright and welcoming and the song arrangements come alive in the speakers, with great instrument separation in the mix. Scheffler has a superb voice, strong and warm in the delivery and perfect as a focal point for the impressive musicianship that supports the songs. It’s very much in the Americana genre with strident choruses and great guitar breaks, balanced by more reflective songs that look to explore the challenges and joys to be found in relationships and in trying to navigate the twists and turns of living.
The ukulele and keyboard accordion on I Don’t Love You Like I Should is an admission that there can always be room for growth in any relationship and learning to communicate openly is the key to success ‘Have me do what you would, For me to love you like I should.’ The addictive rhythm of Punch Line is more in keeping with the overall sound of the album with a driving beat and chiming guitar delivering with impressive style.
Where Do I Know You From? captures that experience we have all had of meeting a contact that we just can’t remember ‘Like circling a parking lot, looking for empty spaces.’ It’s a fun track with a great groove. The title song Truce is a slower affair that captures feelings of the past wrapped up in a relationship memory ‘The man I see reflected in a store window frame, I’ve given up trying to reclaim, As time keeps on ticking out its arbitrary game, Answers fail, So the question is the same, Why’d you do it?’ Excellent in every way.
Carry On Without Me, Basher, Hang On, Skyline and Blue Sky Mess play out at a pace that is really engaging and celebratory in the melodic thrust. The more sedate All In Good Time and the questioning Excuse the Mess ask more of relationship challenges and what will become accepted communication between a couple. It all comes together on final track We’re All Waiting where the troubles of the past are seen as nothing more than a shadow along the way to the bright side of the road. This is an excellent album to mark the return of a very talented artist and it’s a strong indicator for greater things to come.
Paul McGee
Rob Wheeler Leave Tomorrow Self Release
Every one of the eleven songs featured on this album grabs the attention from the first moment and the overall impression is one of respect for the creative process involved. This is a third album for Rob Wheeler and it is delivered with a confidence and a swagger that shines a light on his undoubted talent. There is a vibrancy in the song arrangements, the melodies, the ensemble playing, and in the message of living for today. The album title is the opening track and it sets off with a fine melodic theme about moving away to start anew “We got everything we need in the back seat of my car.” Striking out for the horizon is a pipe dream for many and a fine star to wish upon what just might prove possible.
Rob recorded the album in Nashville and the studio musicians really do justice to these songs. Indeed, the track My Nashville Song has sound effects of an airline landing as he flies into the music city. Any intimidation that Rob felt in bringing his music to such a renowned place is not evident and he clearly revels in the fact that he made the album there. Pedal steel dove-tails with electric guitar and the song arrangement is excellent in portraying the story; a proud mum back in England and the memory of old teachers who told Rob that he would never succeed.
I Am Not Afraid To Fall has a big production sound with a driving rhythm section pulsing through the tempo on a song about baring your vulnerabilities in relationships. Things slow a little on Whisper and the prominent violin lifts the melody on a love song that looks for reassurance in a relationship and ultimately a feeling of peace. Equally the acoustic leanings on When You Can’t Let Go bring a feeling of being overwhelmed by love and the vulnerable state it induces. Harmony vocal on this track is courtesy of Marla Cannon-Goodman.
Why Whisky Why reflects “I try to be cool but I drink like a fool, And I always want to buy another round … Why did I have to get so damn drunk, that the worst of me shone through.” Something About Your Eyes has a slow build with the musicians locked into the easy groove and a message that time can heal a broken heart. Another song that circles around the whirlpool of love is Goodbye Summer and the push/pull of emotions, just like the changing seasons. Elsewhere, Warning reminds me of the American singer Richard Marx who had a successful run of hits in the 1980s and 1990s with a big sound and production. Things start to wind down with Throw A Little Light My Way and the soulful vocal delivery is complimented by soaring violins, before Mount Juliet closes everything down on a song of longing and finally coming home.
Paul McGee
Tuxis Giant You Won’t Remember This Worry Bead
A Boston band named after a deserted island close to Connecticut where a giant is once fabled to have lived. The band formed in 2015 and this is their fifth full album, which was recorded at Wit’s End in Wilmington, Vermont. The thirteen tracks were all written by founder Matt O’Connor and the project was entirely arranged and self-produced by the band, which is comprised of Matt O’Connor (vocals, guitar), Eleanor Elektra (guitar, vocals, accordion, harmonica, synthesizer), Fenn Macon (bass), James Steinberg (drums, synthesizer).
Their sound is very soothing and drifts along a gentle dream-like state with impressions of daily life, and wry observations of what can strike as surreal in the ordinariness of things. Matt O’Connor has an interesting way of looking at the world and his perspectives sit snugly into the cathartic release that the music brings. This is guitar based short songs that hit a mark and then leave quietly, their reflections staying with you.
Highlights such as Huey, Reasons, Heart Surgery and What’s Going On In Your Mind bring a sense of quiet calm, despite the song content, and it’s the laconic approach to the lyrics, coupled with minimalist arrangements that creates an atmosphere of feeling suspended. Is this indie-folk? It’s stripped down approach is very effective and the one song where the tempo gets to speed up is the almost-Punk rush of Language I Can Understand on a song in search of connection.
Reference of antidepressants changes the idyllic charm on opening track Simple Days, and the role that faith plays is questioned in Holy Water where icons, of themselves, don’t ensure that good luck prevails. Days is another song about connection where routine turns into after-work downtime and a chance to feel human. What matters and of importance is something that is left open to interpretation of Trying To Be Numb where the pursuit of hedonistic highs is selfish and the expense of others.
Heart Surgery recalls the trauma of surgery on O’Connor’s Mom and the minutiae that remains as memories while in the hospital waiting room and hanging on a positive outcome ‘like my dad cracking jokes, and my brother glued to his phone.’ The funeral scene that is painted on Family Funeral is again taken up with the strange observations taken from extreme emotional fallout‘ ‘weirdly, the sun's out. radio plays "Twist & Shout." laughing echoes from the kitchen like a well.’ The karaoke bar in Huey has the couple singing songs by Huey Lewis and the News while bonding over the lasting power of love. This album, is a real lucky bag of treats across thirteen songs that bring much to enjoy and you will find plenty to bring you back to this interesting band.
Paul McGee
Ollella Antifragile Self Release
What an interesting album. It is always a welcome surprise to be given music that pushes the listening boundaries into new spaces, and Ollella certainly takes her colourful song arrangements and infuses them with plenty to inspire and stimulate. Her real name is Ellie Barber and she is a Seattle native who became involved in music from a young age. She is classically trained on cello and her approach to improvisational song structures is to be applauded.
Her debut album BACK BACK BACK appeared in 2023 and with this follow-up, all twelve songs are written by Ellie Barber, with production courtesy of Jordan Cunningham, who also contributes to the song arrangements on guitar, and ‘sound samples.’ Ollella likes to use a variety of clever recording techniques across these tracks, like the interesting backward loops on Blank, a song about relating, that sounds almost avant-garde, and yet is simple in the melody. She uses violin on one track, baritone sax and trumpet on two others, with trumpet/fluegelhorn also featuring, in addition to keyboard sounds on three tracks, courtesy of Charles Wicklander. It somehow pulls together into a very unique listening experience, strangely addictive and inventive at every turn. I hear Kate Bush in some of the inner-meanderings, the spirit of Sinead O’Connor in other places, and the experimentation of Bjork threaded throughout.
Is it contemporary folk, perhaps alternative-indie-folk? Or maybe it’s just refreshingly unique music that defies any attempt to shackle it into a specific genre. Creative bass throughout from Nate Sharp is ably supported by Sean Lane on drums, with one track featuring Emily Silks. The songs appear to be largely concerning relationships in different guises. In the absence of a lyric sheet, one can only form interpretations and assume certain perspectives, but What Should We Do, Optimist and Too Good follow lines of communications that take different relationship sides and directions, while other songs like Path Unknown and Spinning In Place hint at the troubled state of our planet and the relationship that we hold with it.
Margery is not a person that the singer is very aligned with in life, and the superb jazz-tinged Mothers and Colors seems to be a meditation on the role played by female energy in balancing the distorted leaning of this World. Main vocals, cello & tenor guitar are by Ellie Barber/Ollella and her use of cello particularly is very creative and innovative. Supporting musicians across selective tracks are Kate Dinsmore on harmonies, with Willem de Koch (horn arrangements), Carrie Jennings, Noah Pettibon, and Isabel Dammann all featuring on wind instruments and violin.
Full marks to the creative drive of Ollella, which is at play across these interesting song structures; the key words being ‘creative play’ in the vision. Hypnotic and intriguing, music to be enjoyed and shared.
Paul McGee