Scott Tuma’s Dandelion

Scott Tuma, ex-of cult-ish, avant-gard-Americana outfit Souled American, treads the fine line between electronic experimentation and evocative country folk in his fourth solo album Dandelion, with glistening threads of backwoods melody running through altered found-sound and the drone and clatter of free improv. It’s beautifully elusive, this album – you follow it like a will o’ the wisp, sure that you’re going to grasp it momentarily, then opening your hands to find empty air and a vague sense of mystery and loveliness. Think of Califone with all the connective tissue and accessibility rubbed out, or Ethan Rose’s electronic experiments waltzing in country time…or just stop thinking and listen, because you’re never going to nail it and that’s okay, too.

There were only 400 copies made and a lot of them have already been sold…but Digitalis has made three MP3s available.

“Red Roses for Me”

“Hope Jones (Jason’s Song)”


“Free Dirt”

Another running diary

So, things have slowed to a crawl in most ways, though I have gotten two “are you working Christmas week?” emails from corporate clients in the last 24 hours, so not entirely. Still the music stuff is just about moribund until 2010, so I have been dabbling in review CDs and mostly listening to whatever the hell appeals to me. Last night, while playing Trivial Pursuit with my son, we happened on The Veils’ “The Letter” and Sean was like, “Who is this? Can I have it?” So I burned it for him, and we listened to it on our very early drive to school.

I know really almost nothing about the Veils, except that their singer has a very dramatic, somehow-more-than-shoegaze-y kind of voice and that they use a lot of shiny, glossy, effect kinds of things to build shivery walls of guitar sound. Here’s a video of “The Letter.” If you like it, you might see if your mom could finagle a copy of Sun Gangs for you. It works sometimes, though not always.



And, while it was still barely light, I tromped off for my run, a very chilly one so that even with my hood pulled up, the iPod earplugs kept freezing and falling out of my ears. On the upside, it was long enough for another listen through the very excellent Yeti 4 compilation, all 28 tracks of it. (Thanks Michael!) I was intrigued by the comp because it had a track by Souled American, a band about which I know jack shit, except that it merited a long digression in Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem. And look here, I found a video by Souled American, though not of the song on the comp. This one is “In the Mud.” Don’t you love the internet?



Finally, as I was finishing my run and also buying Christmas dinner (hangar steak) and driving home, I listened again to The Mountain Goats We Shall All Be Healed, which I love really a lot more than the new one. The thing about Darnielle versus all the other clever songwriters (Stephin Merritt comes to mind) is that he really seems to care whether you hear him or not. There’s none of this ironic, posed detachment, and instead a kind of stridence and urgency which I would call sincere except that sincere has all kinds of zero-brained connotations and Darnielle is really, really smart. So, anyway, here’s a video of “Your Belgian Things” (there are some Shearwater folks playing back-up…whoo hoo!)


Stay warm!