Standup Bass

The sixth album to come from the alter ego of occasional illustrated man Dave Harrow takes a step away from his bluesy Straight from the Fridge. Indeed, a move to Los Angeles in the early months of 2003 resulted in a veritably sun-drenched full-length, which slides back to his pre-breakbeat roots in its collision of tribal beats, techno dancefloor grunt, and standup bass. The opening "Feel in Love" sets the agenda, a heat haze of strolling percussion and offbeat bass, the vocals of Harrow's latest muse E Luv's vocals rising from the disc like a fog. Techno shudders through the album, but is far from an overriding influence, with a swing-time sway driving through "Heart Beat" and the smell of Cohibas rising over "Doyoudo," with traces of Harrow's soundtrack work for the cinema evident in the closing ambience of "To Be Found."

Psychobilly. By its very name it's a kick in the pants, an emphatic wallop that metes out harmony between the greasers and punks by the thrum of standup bass. HorrorPops made a real impression with Hell Yeah, their Epitaph debut, and 2005's Bring It On! also delivers soundly. The band never gets carried away with establishing a rabid, rapid pace, or the genre's obsession with grabby ghouls and pools of blood. That stuff's in there, but it's cut with Patricia Day's endearing "girl group gone a little bad" lead vocals and dynamic songwriting that finds the most effective way to combine rockabilly thump with punk swagger, instead of the most obvious one.

Every pro electric-bass player and their mothers wore out the grooves of this record when it first came out, trying to cop Clarke's speedy, thundering, slapped-thumb bass licks. Yet ultimately, it was Clarke's rapidly developing compositional skills that made this album so listenable and so much fun for the rest of us, then and now. The title track not only contributed a killer riff to the bass vocabulary; it is a cunningly organized piece of music with a well-defined structure…

Iron & Wine - Ghost On Ghost (2013) {4AD CAD3306CD}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 262 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 104 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 247 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 4AD / Nonesuch | CAD3306CD
Indie Folk / Indie Rock / Indie Pop / Blues / Jazz / Soft Rock

After expanding his intimate indie folk sound about as far as it could go on the last Iron & Wine album, Kiss Each Other Clean, Sam Beam (and trusty producer Brian Deck) take a step back on Ghost on Ghost and deliver something less suited for large arenas and more late-night jazz club-sized. The arrangements on that album were stuffed with instruments and seemed built to reach the back row; this time there are still plenty of horns, violins, and female backing vocals in the mix, but they are employed with a much lighter touch. Working with jazz drummer Brian Blade and a standup bass and mixing together elements of country, jazz, indie rock, and soft rock, the album has a much more intimate feel that suits Beam's quietly soulful vocals much more naturally.

If the cover of If the World Was You brings to mind a vintage Blue Note LP, it's purely intentional: J.D. Souther recorded this album live in the studio supported by a basic quintet of piano, standup bass, drums, saxophone, and trumpet, colored by Souther's guitar and a cameo from Béla Fleck. It's a stark contrast to the slick SoCal studio gloss of his '70s albums, where much of the pleasure was to hear pros play the tunes of this professional songwriter, but here the music relaxes and breathes, rolling out with a relaxed ease.