Shelley Short again

I’ve been away all day, down in Northampton, nice day, nothing very reportable about it. Meanwhile, Blurt’s run my review of Shelley Short’s A Cave, a Canoo, which I enjoyed very much, albeit in a low-key way. I said:

Shelley Short makes simplicity look easy. Her gentle, minimally accompanied songs sound like they might have been composed on the spot, sung in a near-whisper so as not to wake the young ones up and recorded directly on the collective memory. Her soft voice flutters effortlessly over quick flights of melody and slides languorously into sustained notes, not a hint of artifice glinting through. Her guitar playing is soft and unassuming, a string of lovely notes left to hang in the air. Her lyrics touch obliquely on everyday natural images, often drawing the connections to love, life, death and memory through ellipsis and understatement.

The rest

“Time Machine/Submarine”

I’ve put this mp3 up before, but if you didn’t catch it, here it is again.

Blurt has also got another live review of the Lightning Dust/Cave Singers tour up today. Whose do you think it better, eh? (Don’t answer that, I don’t really want to know.)

Jud Cost’s


Mine

Lightning Dust and Cave Singers live

I went to see Lightning Dust, part of the extended Black Mountain family, and Cave Singers a couple of weeks ago and wrote this for Blurt.

Cave Singers and Lightning Dust have a fair amount in common. Both are from the Northwest - Cave Singers from Seattle, Lightning Dust from Vancouver - and seldom play the smaller towns on the east coast. (Lightning Dust has been to Northampton once, Cave Singers never.) Both are offshoots of louder bands in aggressive punk and rock traditions. Derek Fudesco was in Murder City Devils and Pretty Girls Make Graves before Cave Singers, and Amber Webber and Joshua Wells both hail from the Black Mountain family. And both are now exploring gentler, more traditional Americana sounds - though with an edge and intensity that comes from rock.

The rest of the review


Lightning Dust’s “I Knew”


Cave Singers’ “At the Cut”

Struck by dust, covered in lightning

I consider the tremulous warble of Black Mountain's Amber Webber in her second album as Lightning Dust...which is called Infinite Lights, out tomorrow on Jagjaguwar.

My review at Dusted begins..
Lightning Dust takes a slight veer toward the pop on this second outing from Black Mountain regulars Amber Webber and Josh Wells. Where their self-titled effort was all eerie tremulousness, sparse arrangements and bleak lyrical visions, Infinite Light lets in the sunshine. Here, Appalachian rawness gives way to bright 1970s piano chords and runs, rhythmic slashes of cello and violin. The pace is faster, the drums more insistent. There are even handclaps, faint but there, in opener “Antonia Jane.” Webber’s soft, decadent vibrato still carries emotional freight, but Infinite Light is less gothic, less cobwebbed and spooky than the debut.

There's more, naturally.

“I Knew”

“Never Seen”

Stevie Nicks unexpectedly reappears in my life

Okay, I'll admit it. I wore out at least one cassette copy of the Stevie Nicks solo album during college...never bought into her fashion aesthetic, but I really liked "Leather & Lace." But, really, I was pretty sure I'd put all that behind me years ago, lives ago, along with Tommy Tu-Tone ("for the price of a dime, I can always turn to you") and (eek, embarrassing) Phil Collins. Then last week Madame shawls and cowboy boots made a surprise return visit to my music-listening life.

First, I started listening to the Dry Spells, Too Soon for Flowers, a really wonderful acid folk debut from a band made up mostly of the female contingent from Citay. They end with a cover...it's "Rhiannon." Which isn't one of the free mp3 giveaways, but here are some others:

"Lost Daughter"

"Batwood"

And also, I began to consider Lightning Dust's Infinite Light, and it occured to me that the only real reference point for Amber Wells' vibrato warped contralto was, you guessed it, Stevie Nicks.

"I Knew"

"Never Seen"

I'm reviewing both records for Dusted, though nothing will go up for a while.


In more legitimate news, I am really, really liking the new Dinosaur Jr., my kitchen recorde of the moment, nothing new here, but who plays else plays the guitar like that?

Also, I'm probably going to see Bowerbirds/Megafaun on Saturday, if I can get away. My son's in "As You Like It" all weekend long, but I think we're going to see the Friday show, not Saturday. Mission of Burma is playing a very low-key show in Northampton the night before, which I can't get to, but hope it means new material.