Howling Kettles' rabid hoe-down

I've got my first Dusted review of the year up now, a consideration of Howling Kettles' home-brewed string band rambles. Howling Kettles is another project from Sam Moss, who lives down the road in Brattleboro and has appeared on a couple of Imaginational Anthem comps. I still haven't met him or seen him play, but maybe some day...

The Howling Kettles
The Parlor is Pleasant on Sunday Night


When I reviewed Sam Moss’s Neighbors last year, I was struck by how solitary it was, how it explored the lonely, desolate side of the Americana experience in stark, slow-tempo combinations of voice and banjo (and a little guitar). The Howling Kettles, Moss’ string band collaboration with Jackson Emmer, is completely different: giddily communicative, celebratory, and wildly, rhythmically physical.

More here

You can hear the whole thing at the Howling Kettles' website.

In other news, a big shout-out to the cloud, which has somehow preserved a long-lost copy of Art Brut's Bang Bang Rock and Roll and, a couple of days ago, reinstalled it on my iTunes. I'm listening to it right now. What a fun record. Looks like there's also a Stereolab album with my name on it, good times.



Also, I have given up on Pictures in Sound: One Thousand Years of Educed Music from Dust-to-Digital. Turns out that the music of past centuries, laboriously transcribed into pictograms and ressurrected just-add-water style sounds a lot like the static between radio stations (and also some of it sounds like calliope). Anyway, I'm willing to grant it's an interesting idea, but listen to its 28 tracks three more times in a row and then have them pop up sporadically on random shuffle? No thanks.

Sam Moss

Sam Moss is a singer, guitarist and banjo player who lives pretty near by in Brattleboro (VT), and he knows some people that I know, but I've never met him or heard him play live. I did like his new EP, Neighbors, and I was sort of planning on reviewing it here, on my blog. Then I finished it, and it seemed like a shame to put it somewhere that only a few people would see it...so I sent it to Otis and, to my surprise, he decided to run it. So it's in Dusted today.


Sam Moss
Neighbors
(self-released)


Sam Moss works the raw, wounded end of Americana, thumping a plaintive rhythm out of banjo strings, singing long mournful notes that twist upwards at the end, like tendrils scrabbling for a few rays of sun. His “Neighbors,” which kicks off this six-song EP, echoes Sam Amidon’s simplicity and Theo Angell’s blues-rooted anguish in untamed, unmannered fashion.

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You can listen to the whole EP at Sam's bandcamp site.


We got DSL yesterday, so now we have internet like everyone else. I was thinking about going back on MOG, but it looks like it's completely different now and I'm not sure I want to anymore.