In this year’s listening, the balance swung back from classical toward the popular a little again. In the non-classical arena, the focus for me is still on acoustic music, real instruments and warm, open production. The year has also been full of delighted rediscoveries and re-connections with ‘old friends.’ For instance—even though she doesn’t have a 2011 release—it’s clear to me now that I haven’t spent nearly enough time over the years listening to Laurie Anderson, who remains a singular creative talent and political voice in American music.

As before, I will limit my lists to records released in 2011. I won’t add re-releases that came out in 2011, though there were many (like U2′s Achtung Baby, or the Smiths box set).

Best new music – Popular, jazz, world, etc.

Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane: Finally, another Alison Krauss & Union Station album! Even though I liked her excursion with Robert Plant, it didn’t really ‘stick.’ Krauss’ clear soprano is still best framed by the inimitable “newgrass” sound of her original band of ace instrumentalists and harmony singers. Another impeccable collection of modern country songs wrapped in traditional dress, this is well worth owning and listening to repeatedly. There is something very wonderful and grounding about this band’s output—a world where such musicianship can exist cannot be all bad, despite what the news may suggest.

Amos Lee – Mission Bell: Amos Lee is a talented songwriter and, as a vocalist, sounds somewhat like the young Cat Stevens. This is his fourth solo album and constitutes a sort of emergence from under the yoke of having been typecast as a sort of Norah Jones alike in his early recording career. On Mission Bell, he teams up with the producer-musicians from the wonderful Calexico (a perennial favourite of mine in their own right, and competent instigators of making others sound cool on a number of different records, for example on the I’m Not There soundtrack). Mission Bell is well worth hearing and becomes more rewarding as you listen repeatedly.

Helge Lien Trio – Natsukashii: I haven’t written nearly enough about Norwegian jazz here. Every jazz musician in the country seems to have a unique, Nordic take on the genre. And while the roots of this trio are clearly somewhere between ECM’s spacious acoustic and the minimalist groove of E.S.T., the focus here shifts from having bebop as its base to something simpler, less technical, more emotionally resonant. Perhaps it’s a conscious further development of the moment when Keith Jarrett is said to have brought ‘folk’ elements into his solo improvisations, perhaps it’s the influence of Scandinavian mythology (or heavy metal?), but this trio sounds like the architect rock stars of what jazz will turn into eventually—and increasingly, this is the kind of talent jazz needs in order to continue to be a vital genre in the 21st century.

Iron and Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean: I deliberately listen to very little ‘indie’ music these days, having somehow grown tired of it in the last few years. Rock rarely grabs my ears the way it once used to. But this caught my ear by surprise and hasn’t really let go. Bright, intelligently arranged songs full of strong melodies. There’s a kind of 80s sensibility to this record which seems different to anything else I’d heard by Iron and Wine—it’s more ‘pop’ than the more folk/country-oriented, subdued work we previously heard from Sam Beam.

Sierra Hull – Daybreak: Sierra Hull is a very young and very talented bluegrass singer and mandolin player. As an Alison Krauss protegé, she benefits from the same widescreen production values and outstanding musicians her mentor employs on her own albums. But there’s something so singularly well done about this that it doesn’t really fit into the “sounds like” category. She plays and sings with the confidence of someone much more experienced, and her songwriting is also excellent. And there are two mandolin-focused instrumentals here that’ll make your speakers smoke.

Nitin Sawhney – Last Days of Meaning: Nitin Sawhney is a UK producer/composer/DJ who originally came to fame as part of a late 90s wave of “Asian underground” DJs who were pioneering a multi-culti dance sound (then) unique to the UK. Since that time, his songwriting ambition has steadily grown through a series of subtle and exceedingly well-produced records featuring guest vocalists from various cultural backgrounds (East, West, and everything in between). Lately, his albums have included more cultural/political commentary—usually told through fictional characters and their stories. In this latest effort, veteran actor John Hurt plays a hermitic old man with conservative, xenophobic views who’s been sent a tape containing songs that—at the surface—sound like everything he hates about the world. Listening to them, he gradually softens and gains new insights. Sawhney’s songs are outstanding miniatures, intelligently written and true to their specific genres. Highly, highly recommended (as is virtually everything else Sawhney’s ever released, including his soundtrack for the BBC’s Human Planet).

Coeur de Pirate – Blonde: My original review is here.

Tinariwen – Tassili: Another fantastic record from Mali’s most amazing musical export (currently living, that is). This is the blues in its original form, all two chords of it, and you can clearly hear where John Lee Hooker’s inspiration came from. Tinariwen are an excellent band with strong rhythm, a rock ‘n roll attitude and an uncompromising musical vision. The fact that Tinariwen are joined here once or twice by some people from TV on the Radio is only a minor distraction (and actually quite good). What’s consistently awesome is how sophisticated and engaging this trance-inducing music with the sing-song melodies and limited harmonic development is. It’s the sort of world music that gives back a mile when you give an inch.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator: I think Derek Trucks is currently the world’s best blues guitarist. He’s an unfailingly tasteful and minimalist player who seems to have no technical limitations and effortlessly puts simple licks into strategic spots in songs where they genuinely matter musically. Formerly a touring guitarist of the Allman Brothers Band and fronting his own outfit, the Derek Trucks Band, Trucks has now joined forces with his wife Susan Tedeschi (a superb blues singer/songwriter) and a cast of 11 or so others, including two (!) drummers. The results are astounding and exhilarating, half blues, half soul, all played true to the idiom with perfect phrasing on guitar and vocals. Two giants, really, at the top of their respective game. You should totally buy this.

Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive: Another accomplished album by Steve Earle. Continuing the “new Steve Earle” trajectory he started in the mid 90s, this record reaffirms the departure from ‘country’ and mines an immense number of related genres: alt-country, folk, roots rock, Irish reels, even Tom Waits (who, let’s face it, is a genre unto himself). I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive is merely a solid Steve Earle record (certainly not the greatest he’s made), but as such is one of the better albums of the year virtually by definition. Deeply credible, critical of the political status quo, committed to social justice without being preachy, able to wield a simple lyric like a sharp weapon, and capable of connecting to a broad spectrum of listeners: Earle has become the social conscience of roots music lovers everywhere.

Patricia O’Callaghan – Matador: The Songs of Leonard Cohen: O’Callaghan is a Toronto-based, classically trained vocalist whose considerable skills are typically brought to bear on interpreting other people’s songs. On this record, she focuses entirely on Leonard Cohen songs—music, I’ve often thought, that benefits from being performed by people who are not Leonard Cohen. O’Callaghan’s performances (one or two of which have been previously released) are so assured, so incredibly well worked out, her phrasing so spot-on, the arrangements so good, they stake a reasonable claim for being better than the originals. Her version of ‘Who By Fire’ is astonishing, her ‘Hallelujah’ impeccable and her ‘Everybody Knows’ is clean and—without Cohen’s grit—takes on a different inflection entirely that’s just as good as the original. Highly recommended. I’ve also enjoyed Patricia O’Callaghan’s album with the Gryphon Trio from earlier this year, Broken Hearts & Madmen. It’s perhaps not completely worthy of a “best of 2011″ mention (or maybe I just think there are too many songs sung in Spanish on it), but it’s also outstanding and more than deserves to be heard. I love its version of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Pieces and Parts.’

Best new classical music

Eric Whitacre – Light & Gold: Eric Whitacre is a young American composer of mostly choral music. He has, in recent years, built himself quite a reputation on Youtube (virtual choirs and the like), and his last two records genuinely ‘crossed over’ into the outer layers of the mainstream. My inclusion of this album as a “best of 2011″ pick feels slightly tentative because I can’t entirely shake the sense that there’s something ever-so-slightly cheesy populist about some of Mr. Whitacre’s pieces… or maybe, I find myself reacting to the unbridled enthusiasm with which he’s embraced by all sorts of listeners who otherwise don’t know classical music from a bar of soap. His crossover ‘pop’ status puts him in close proximity (at least physically, in music stores) to the Susan Boyles and Andrea Bocellis of this world. Yet his music is often astonishingly beautiful, interesting and deserves a serious audience.

Kristian Bezuidenhout, Freiburger Barockorchester, Gottfried von der Goltz – Mendelssohn Piano Concertos: Mendelssohn’s early piano concertos are delightful confections of “Early Romanticism,” all pretty melodies and a string orchestra. Pre-Sturm und Drang, this reflects much of Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel’s technical advancements without yet carrying the weight of Romanticism. Bezuidenhout, who’s from South Africa, plays the fortepiano, a predecessor of the piano we know today, whose character is brighter, nimbler—but also more brittle and less ‘full’ than your Steinways and Bösendorfers. It works beautifully here (whereas I struggle with some of the piano solo material when it’s played on a fortepiano). The Freiburg Baroque orchestra does a lovely job. This is an immensely listenable release that continues to delight time and again.

The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Stephen Layton – Beyond all mortal dreams: American a cappella: This is a panoramic traversal of some very fine American choral music, exceptionally sung by one of Britain’s foremost choirs. All of this material is form the 20th century, but is about as far from serial music or other modernist art musics as one can imagine. Though harmonically advanced and interesting, this isn’t dissonant music. While it can sometimes be quiet, the recording’s dynamics demand your attention (this isn’t ‘casual listening music’). I hear connections between this and Arvo Pärt—much of it comes from within a distinctly religious tradition. If you’re looking for introspection and a wonderful showcase of the fine harmony human voices can produce, look no further than this.

Stephen Hough – Chopin Complete Waltzes: Stephen Hough, it strikes me, is one of the few pianists who seem to have absolutely no technical limitations. Like Marc-André Hamelin (the other pianist in the small group that immediately springs to mind), Hough appears able to focus all his energy on interpretation—on providing us with musical insights into the work. I say “appears” because I know that much of the dynamics of performance spring from “doing battle with” one’s own technical limitations, and I’m also aware that suggesting someone doesn’t have technical limitations implies that their performances would be particularly light (or that they don’t need to practice). Neither applies here or is in any way an issue (and Chopin’s waltzes certainly deserve a certain lightness of touch). This is a beautiful record—just like everything else I’ve ever heard Hough play. I would say these are definitive performances.

Heinz Holliger, Camerata Bern, Erich Höbarth – Bach Oboe Concertos: A lovely collection of well-played, well-recorded Bach concertos and sinfonias rendered for oboe and Baroque orchestra. Heinz Holliger’s research really shines here, rendering what are more often performed as works for the violin on the oboe (a legitimate transcription, and sometimes performed like that in Bach’s time), and surrounding them with sinfonias/chorale transcriptions to give them a longer arch, better shape and create a program that flows better. If you’re looking for one instrumental Baroque disc this year, this should probably be it. (Although I feel like I could have a whole separate post on “best Baroque recordings of the year.”)

Jean-Guihen Queyras, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Vivaldi Cello Concertos: Queyras is a young French cellist whose tone is more like that of a dark viola d’amore than a cello, and he has the same lightness that someone playing a handheld instrument could achieve. I was first drawn in by his remarkable Bach Cello suites a few years ago which showcased his dexterity, lightness of touch and depth of thinking about Baroque music. Performing Vivaldi may not require the same erudition as Bach’s solo works, but these works are rendered flawlessly (even if the recording has the tiniest bit too much treble). There are also some sinfonias here by Caldara, providing a bit of balance and welcome diversion between the three-movement sets of the concertos. The Akademie plays true to its usual fiery self.

Joyce DiDonato, Karina Gauvin et. al, Il Complesso Barocco, Alan Curtis – Handel Ariodante: This is hands down the best new opera recording of the year for me. Alan Curtis has been rendering Handel operas with his hand-picked European orchestra and an ever-more-amazing roster of singers for many years. This recording now also includes the incredible new Baroque mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato who sings this music so flawlessly that one might imagine it was written for her. What makes this even more special, though, is that every singer here is equally accomplished—so the whole enterprise never sags, drags or lags. Even if you think you don’t like opera, this may be good enough to get you into it. Handel wrote the pop songs of his era, staged with as much fanfare as a Lady Gaga appearance, and this album renders them terrifically.

Leif Ove Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff – Schumann Complete Works for Piano Trio: The Tetzlaffs and Andsnes have established a kind of new European chamber supergroup through a few years of collaborating at Lars Vogt’s Spannungen chamber festival in Heimbach, Germany. Christian Tetzlaff, of course, is one of the current violin greats playing on modern instruments, equally at home in this repertoire as in Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The close ensemble work here is an expression of the three musicians’ finely honed listening skills, high musicianship and excellent preparation. I don’t feel equipped to say that these are definitive recordings (I love the Florestan Trio, too), but it’s an amazing complete compendium of Schumann trio music and consistently of an excellent standard. If you don’t know Schumann’s chamber music, you ought to hear this.

Alina Ibragimova, Cédric Tiberghien – Beethoven Violin Sonatas Vol. 3: The final volume in Alina Ibragimova’s Beethoven sonata cycle, this deserves being included in this year’s best of list: the whole cycle, which appeared on three discs over the course of the last few years, is the result of a series of very well received live recordings at Wigmore Hall. I had my heart set on not liking this as much as the Isabelle Faust/Alexander Melnikov Beethoven sonata cycle from a couple of years ago (which I thought was unbeatable), but Ibragimova and Tiberghien convinced me piece by piece. It is especially remarkable that these are live recordings; the consistent perfection delivered by these two young musicians is simply amazing. Ibragimova is rapidly becoming the new violinist to watch.

Honorary Mention

Adam Gopnik – Winter: Five Windows on the Season (CBC Massey Lectures 2011): Honorary mention goes to Adam Gopnik’s 2011 Massey Lectures which are a delight in terms of both content and delivery. In five one-hour lectures, Gopnik takes us on a whirlwind tour to explore how one might think about the ‘meaning of winter’ from various cultural and historical perspectives. He covers everything from Scrooge to fighting in hockey, arctic explorers to skating as courtship, and the intellectual enjoyment of it never lets up (if anything, he can be a bit of a fast-talker and I occasionally found myself struggling to keep up and had to go back). The book, which appeared before the audio lectures were broadcast on the CBC, is much longer and more detailed. If you want to learn something this season, try these.

Now that the kind folks from the Vancouver Olympic committee have once again forced them down our collective throats during the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics, I was reminded to share my theory about Nickelback. Does Nickelback warrant a theory? You bet. Since they are one of Canada’s biggest entertainment industry exports, I think we deserve all the attempts at an explanation we can get.

Let me start off by stating my theory: I think Nickelback is a country band. There. It’s a simple theory – I’m basically positing that we’ve all been herded down the wooden path of believing they’re hard rock, post-grunge, whatever; but really, they’re a country band from Hanna, Alberta, a hamlet of 2,800 inhabitants deep in the Canadian prairies. Two and a half hours from Calgary, three hours from Red Deer and about 5 hours from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Hanna is literally in the middle of nowhere. The Canadian heartland.

Now, since Nickelback is already apparently the most hated band ever, I’m not going to spend a tremendous amount of time trying to prove that I’m right. But I will suggest you watch some of these Youtube clips (most of which can – conveniently – not be embedded in other websites at the request of EMI Canada, Nickelback’s record label – because, you know, why would you encourage free online marketing for your band?).

In each case, try to notice and imagine the following (apart from Chad Kroeger’s Albrecht Dürer hair, of course, which you’ll notice whether you want to or not):

Cowboy hats and boots are in evidence, however fleetingly, everywhere. Band members other than Chad Kroeger have very neat, heartland cowboy hair styles. There are a lot of pickup trucks and Jeeps. The choruses all sound like modern country music (which, as we all know, sounds like 70s/80s mainstream rock). Every time a chorus comes on, try to imagine away the crunchy distorted guitar chords, and instead think about how it would sound if it were played with acoustically strummed guitars and fiddles and/or pedal steel guitars. Notice the really skilled close harmony singing in many of the choruses. It sounds just like Big & Rich or Rascal Flatts.

So here are the video links:

• Photograph (A party on the back of a pickup truck: ’nuff said.)
• Far Away (What’s with the sleeveless shirt? More pickup trucks here. And what possessed 17 million people to watch this on Youtube?)
• Someday (She drives a giant SUV with New York plates, and the streets of New York are totally empty; it’s a kind of hick town fantasy of what the big city’s like.)
• Never Again (Cowboy hat at 0:07.)
• Never Gonna Be Alone (Close harmony singing in the chorus, sounds just like Rascal Flatts.)
• If Today Was Your Last Day (see above)

Now please excuse me while I go and find something light to listen to, something that’s not depressing and where the lead singer doesn’t sound terminally constipated. If I have to watch one more depressing video about breakups, deaths or accidents I’ll throw myself in front of a bus. Do people actually like this kind of music?

For some much-needed lightness, you might want to watch this version of Photograph, which made me laugh out loud. It’s a bit long, but it’s definitely the right idea.

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A review of Dwight Yoakam’s This Time (1993)

Even though I had Hillbilly Deluxe and Cadillacs, Guitars Etc. Etc. on vinyl in the 80s and liked them (really, they provided my first ‘country music’ experiences that weren’t related to the radio and didn’t result in fierce episodes of doubt and self-loathing), This Time occupies a special place in my heart. I believe it to be the pinnacle of Dwight’s output in the 90s, accessible hard Bakersfield honky tonk mixed in with fabulous, credible, truly sad weepers. I think “Two Doors Down” and “Home For Sale” are two of the loveliest country ballads ever recorded. All material here was written either by Yoakam alone or together with Kostas. The playing is top-notch throughout, and the Hammond B3 on some of the slower numbers is downright inspired – Hammonds this intense haven’t been heard since Jon Lord played Bach in Deep Purple. It’s a crime Amazon is currently selling this for $6.99. There should be an option to pay more, voluntarily.

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Reviews of Joey + Rory’s The Life of a Song and Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson’s Rattlin’ Bones

“Turn it up loud so we all can sing along,” sings Joey Martin Feek at the beginning of The Life of a Song, Joey + Rory’s debut album. “Let the people decide if the music is right or it’s wrong. Man it’s a shame, instead of playing the game, play the song.”

Joey + Rory may at first glance look like an overnight success story: they won third place on Can You Duet, CMT‘s American Idol-alike for country duos. Then, they got signed to Vanguard/Sugar Hill Records, and their debut entered the country charts at number 10. Like any successful Nashville act, of course, their sudden success is really the result of years of toiling in country music – in bands, solo, as professional songwriters and producers. Joey’s husband, Rory Lee Feek, has spent more than 10 years writing songs on music row and has several chart toppers for a variety of big-name country singers to his name.

Despite all their insider status, photogenic appearance and polished skills, Joey + Rory make a strong case for traditional country music – both on their website and in their music. Theirs is a highly evolved, focused, beautifully executed set of songs that deserves being heard; actually, I think it’s so good it deserves being loved. Joey has an exceptional, unsentimental country voice – she avoids r&b’s vocal pyrotechnics which are increasingly finding their way into modern country in favour of singing it straight up. Rory seems to have saved his best songs for this commercial debut. The material sounds very ‘finished’ – a songbook that could be sung by other performers and might even work outside the country genre.

Joey + Rory, if they are Nashville’s new beacons of traditional country (together, surely, with people like Patty Loveless), are reformers from inside the system: the musical-industrial complex is their vehicle, and it is within its confines that their music blossoms fully. Not really a duo in the traditional sense (Rory essentially sings background harmonies, like Kristian Bush to Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles), their collaboration is a songwriter’s with his ideal performer. Youtube has J+R’s Can You Duet audition video, and in it, Rory says that Joey is his singer and he’s her song. Their honest, beautiful, simple and heartfelt songs make that ring true.

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Kasey Chambers is an incredibly talented and accomplished country singer-songwriter from Australia. Hers is also a long story of musical apprenticeship and hard work: born in 1976 into a musical family with strong Australian country roots (you may not know this, but Australia has a vivid country music tradition and industry), she was on stage at an early age to perform with her parents and brother Nash in the Dead Ringer Band, who released several very good albums in the 90s and were extremely successful in Australia. Starting in 1999, Chambers released several increasingly acclaimed solo albums and spent considerable time living, recording and touring in the US. With each solo album, though, she departed a little more from traditional country music, typically in an “alt country” or “Americana” direction. Her sound on these records was not unlike Lucinda Williams’, though Chambers’ music is nimbler, smarter, sexier and (quite a lot) funnier.

In 2008, she released an excellent duet album with her husband, singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson. Their voices are a surprisingly good match: Chambers’ slightly cracked, nasal, twangy child-woman tone meshes well with Nicholson’s ever-so-slightly bland but certainly assured straight-up singing.

In contrast to Joey + Rory, Chambers’ and Nicholson’s songs are mostly dark laments of love found and lost, death, the autumn of relationships and the dark places in our psyches. Rattin’ Bones contains a sort of gothic, Nick Cave world of country music, beautiful but autumnal music filled with intelligent, cryptic and darkly funny words. The tone of the album is a little like the Cold Mountain soundtrack – music meant to evoke another period; music that’s ancient and true. This is very traditional country music, although there are tracks where the deliberate roughness of the production takes it in a dirty garage rock direction and makes them sound like the White Stripes.

What unites the Joey + Rory and Chambers/Nicholson projects is their high quality and unwavering dedication to creating traditional country music. Even though they operate from very different perspectives, points of origin and stages of their careers, their souls – as Chambers puts it on the title track, are “not for sale.”

[Sadly, this is another case where the label has removed most of her videos from YouTube, or disabled embedding. Will labels ever get it?]

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A review of Michelle Shocked’s Short Sharp Shocked (1988)

Some of the most memorable music from the 1980s, for me at least, stems from this album (and that’s perhaps because none of it sounds like the 80s at all). Michelle Shocked appeared, pretty much out of nowhere, in the mid-80s after she was “field recorded” at a folk festival on a Sony Walkman (the recording was eventually released as her first album, The Texas Campfire Tapes). Michelle had a beautiful, blues/country voice, big Dr. Martens boots, skinny jeans, a short haircut and all that mystique of having lived on a houseboat in Holland and as a squatter. She was generally both politically to the far left of the spectrum and very musical at the same time, something I remember finding quite irresistible back in the day.

Short Sharp Shocked, her second record, was a polished affair, as country as it was folk or rock. The opener, “When I Grow Up,” has served as my preferred track to test new stereos for years – the rumbling double bass has to be heard to be believed. What makes Michelle Shocked special, though, are her songwriting abilities – and her voice. Pitched slightly deeper than your average country singer from Texas, she had more of the blues (and, perhaps, less of the victim) in her voice. She also sounded much, much wiser and more experienced than her 26 years when Short Sharp Shocked appeared in 1988. The story goes that Michelle Shocked had seen both the inside of a mental institution and traveled the world – both things that come out in the lyrics here.

In a way, Michelle is the fore-runner from “my” generation (who came of age in the 1980s) to prioneer the so-called alt-country movement. Where Dwight Yoakam revolutionized country music by staying firmly in a country idiom, Michelle Shocked re-rooted folk and rock as Americana. Of course, this isn’t surprising: Short Sharp Shocked was produced by Pete Anderson, Yoakam’s long-time guitar cohort and producer. Listen to “(Making The Run To) Gladewater,” where she’s a perfect female ringer for Yoakam’s California honky tonk. Her country timing is impeccable, and listening to her you know that she’s spent countless hours making beer runs on the bumpy backs of pickup trucks across rugged Texas terrain.

Above all, though, Michelle Shocked is about her activism – even her introspection on tracks like the radio single “Anchorage” is essentially commentary on the state of the world. The “Leroy says…” sequence in its lyrics is both an indictment of certain life choices and a passionate feminist statement. “Fogtown,” the hidden track at the end, establishes her punk cred by virtue of having been recorded with punk band MDC. The original “Fogtown” appeared on Texas Campfire and is a lot gentler, but its re-make here shows Michelle as versatile in the way of a troubadour, a bard for whom the message is what’s important, not any false notion of stylistic integrity. (Plus, she always looked more punk than country, anyway.)

Shocked’s long journey out of record label ‘slavery’ is well-documented on Wikipedia and elsewhere. She now owns her complete catalogue and continues to evolve as a musician, regularly releasing the kinds of records she reportedly wanted to make when she was still with a major label – like a gospel CD.

For me, it’s a toss-up whether her magnum opus is Short Sharp Shocked or Arkansas Traveler, which features cameos from such luminaries as Uncle Tupelo, Taj Mahal and Clarence Gatemouth Brown. If Shocked is her early work of countrified political activism, Arkansas showcases a more fully-formed Americana renaissance woman who easily collaborates with the previous generation while simultaneously forging a new genre (it’s key to remember that Arkansas Traveler came out in 1992 – well before alt country became a genre people talked about).

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A review of Lambchop’s OH (Ohio) (2008)

Despite the recording industry’s continuing contraction (not unlike the financial system’s), the world is full of beautiful music that’s worth hearing. One result of the long tail economy has been that there’s so much more music being released independently but not necessarily distributed or marketed. It’s a lot of work reading all the relevant magazines and sites to get ideas and stay on top of things. All of this as a preamble to establish some sort of reasonable way for me to say that I hadn’t ever heard Lambchop before today. I had read about them and they were on my must-check-them-out radar for a while. Now, though, there’s a new album, and New Release Tuesday put it in front of me so that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. In a handy listening post, no less.

This is spectacularly beautiful music. It’s immediately engaging and fits right into the Americana-country-folk-jazz gumbo I’ve been listening to lately. It’s a sort of downtempo alt-country (but alt-country not in a twangy way – more in a “what if Elvis had lived and regressed back to his glam country roots” kind of way), sung by singer-songwriter Kurt Wagner in a dispassionate, minimalist, low voice while an eleven-piece band plays some of the biggest quiet music you can imagine.

Some of it sounds a little like a loungy, countrified, downtempo, ever-so-slightly electronic version of Marvin Gaye’s late period slow burners. Then, there are pieces that somehow marry Neil Diamond and REM (if that makes any sense). Despite being very different vocalists, Kurt Wagner also has something of Bryan Ferry’s theatricality.

This is a very ‘technicolor’ record – incredibly big and very focused and economical at the same time. The quality of the recorded sound is beautiful throughout: a ramarkably sparse ‘widescreen’ experience where power comes from practicing restraint. This is quite a different band from, say, the Arcade Fire – there, more musicians means more sound, more space of the spectrum taken up by noise. Here, it’s the opposite: it’s a fun guessing game to see if you can spot what instrument/musician might have produced the barely audible murmur in the background.

Another good game would be to come up with theories as to why Kurt Wagner needs eleven musicians at all. Not that I’m complaining. I would highly recommend this, and I’ll be exploring more Lambchop.

http://www.amazon.com/Trouble-Humans-Taylor-Carrie-Rodriguez/dp/B000JBXOZ8/teabowl-20

Staying with the theme of how country music could be, here’s a favourite record by Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez. Taylor is a singer-songwriter who emerged as a writer of hit songs in the 60s (‘Angel of the Morning’ and ‘Wild Thing,’ for example). Although he was born and grew up in New York, he had a strong predilection for country music from an early age, and that’s where he has now returned.

Taylor met Carrie Rodriguez, an Oberlin and Berklee College of Music trained singer/songwriter/fiddler, during an in-store performance she gave at the South by Southwest Music Festival in 2001. The two now perform as a duo. Four albums and an EP into their journey together, their music is a low-key, intelligent kind of country/folk – not entirely dissimilar to, say, the Texas singer/songwriter Townes van Zandt. Anchored by Taylor’s strong rhythm guitar and harmonica and Rodriguez’ fiddle, the songs feature insightful lyrics and a kind of “old time country” feel.

They also couldn’t be further removed from the Carrie Underwoods and Jessica Simpsons that seem to pass for country music today. Taylor and Rodriguez have perfectly matching voices – hers a strong cowgirl soprano with a Texas drawl, his a refined baritone with occasional carelessly slurred syllables and frequent moments where he speaks more than he sings. The lyrics are precise and emotionally spot-on throughout – this is material that’s carefully thought out, written to be performed by these two performers, meant to showcase their unique abilities. The Trouble With Humans is a beautiful record about grown-up relationships whose words often manage to encapsulate a core truth in the simplest way possible, yet in a way that we’ve never heard before. ‘Curves and Things’ and the title track should be prescribed material in English class, they’re so good.

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A towering achievement and also an immensely likeable record. Emmylou Harris, after spending the first half of the 90s playing and recording solid if traditionally-oriented country albums, in 1995 teams up with Daniel Lanois and engineer Malcolm Burn to make a surprisingly experimental, electronica-influenced, slow-burning gem of a modern country record that sounds nothing – absolutely nothing – like country music sounds in 1995 (or since, for that matter).

She forges a completely unique path here, presenting material in a way that boldly proposes an alternate universe: one where country music does not sound like 80s mainstream rock (or bluegrass nostalgia). Instead of commercial sheen, the music here has grit, tape hiss, low and odd keyboard pads, loops and samples… and yet, there’s Emmylou Harris’ voice, invoking a true country idiom with every line she sings. There’s much pain and sadness on this record, all of it worth hearing any number of times. A true artist statement, even though she only co-wrote one of the songs (“Waltz Across Texas Tonight,” with Rodney Crowell), Wrecking Ball is a must-have, even if you don’t like country as a rule. (As someone who was always a performer and never a writer, this album also marks the beginning of Emmylou Harris’ journey into songwriting, culminating in later records that have a similar sound but songs mostly penned by her, which are also worth listening to.)

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I know people say “Snorah Jones.” But I like her music – I think it’s mature in a good way: music that begs to be listened to, music that’s firmly based in craft (she’s a very fine pianist) and sung with a clear, expressive voice. Yes, it’s subdued and acoustic and, as such, has been embraced by dinner party hosts and easy listening FM stations everywhere. I also like her selections; it’s music that occupies the space vacated by Aretha Franklin (when Aretha lost her bluesy grit sometime in the mid 1970s) as much as it addresses the listening public’s need for a less austere, horsy (dare I say, less ‘white’?) Diana Krall. And all of it is delivered with more than a small helping of country twang because – despite the fact that her dad’s an Indian classical music superstar and world music hero – Norah’s really from Texas.

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I love this band. They’ve gone through many changes over the years, but there’s always something musical and inspiring to discover in their records. I’ve never seen them play live, but their 2005 live album, Alive and Wired, suggests they’re a “smoking” live act (as the sleeve notes say).

Old 97′s are from Texas and come from the same ‘cow punk’ school made popular by Uncle Tupelo: a punky form of country rock, sort of the anti-Eagles… like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young if Neil had been allowed to plug in his guitar. This is country restored by injecting Texas singer/songwriter cred and hardcore’s energy. Their early records contained such spectacular songs as ‘Doreen’ and ‘Barrier Reef’ – by the sounds of it, fanbase favourites and staples of the live show.

Since about 1999′s Fight Songs, main songwriter Rhett Miller (who has solo aspirations – there are two solo records) has steered the Old 97′s towards a more pop-inflected sound. The country roots are definitely there, but the subject matter and melodies are oriented towards an indie-pop kind of sound (think Barenaked Ladies or They Might Be Giants). The resulting sound is like a more energetic version of Blue Rodeo, or a slightly slicker, more modern Uncle Tupelo. Where Wilco rose from Tupelo’s ashes and gained virtually limitless credibility by mixing country and experimental indie rock, Old 97′s chose to blend country punk with pop. They’re an easier listen, much lighter than Wilco, and a little less sleepy than Blue Rodeo (who, I always thought, were the anti-Wilco – at the opposite end of the modern country/rock spectrum). (I should say that I deeply admire both Wilco and Blue Rodeo.)

Enough of the comparisons and historical situating and on to the new Old 97′s record. Blame it on Gravity is a very listenable, friendly indie/pop/country album. Perhaps not their strongest studio effort, but it’s got strong highlights in ‘Dance with Me’ and ‘She Loves the Sunset’ – both with wacky Latin influences, putting an indie spin on Jimmy Buffett in a manner of speaking. ‘The Easy Way’ has a bit more crunch to it, ‘The One’ rocks and ‘Color of a Lonely Heart is Blue’ is an excellent ballad.

I’m less positive about songs like ‘My Two Feet’ or ‘Ride’ – they sound too pop or indie, too run-of-the-mill to me. It’s as if their lack of country twang hampers them, holds them back from becoming everything they could be. This band shines when a thumping double bass provides a solid two-note baseline to twangy story songs.

Old 97′s are a band worth exploring. You’ll find a lot to like. I’d suggest you start with their earlier records, but this new one is certainly worth listening to.

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Mirrors on the ceiling | Pink champagne on ice | And she said, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”

This is a confession of sorts. I really like the Eagles. I know I’m not supposed to. It’s just not cool. Mainstream rock circa 1976 is like mainstream country today. In fact, much new country sounds distinctly rockier than the Eagles. After punk, New Wave, the 80s, the 90s and the 00s, this music just doesn’t have a place anymore. It doesn’t fit. Old people listen to it. The Eagles are still touring, as a very expensive nostalgia act. After disbanding in the early 80s, they made two quite successful ‘comeback’ albums, Hell Freezes Over in 1994, and the Walmart-only Long Road out of Eden in 2007. Both were reasonably well received, but in that slightly shocked, “It’s not quite terrible! It’s not embarrassing!” kind of way that ‘comeback’ albums are often reviewed these days. They’re competent, journeymanlike productions full of the latest studio techniques, made by artists past their prime. 60 is the new 30.

But when the Eagles were in their prime, they were immensely competent songwriters, assured, even exciting performers, and they made great records. I was born in 1970 with no older siblings, so I have no ‘original’ recollection of any of this. I discovered them ‘on my own.’ Well, I think I taped Eagles Live off of my friend Marc’s dad’s record collection. Then, a little later, I bought it on tape. For some reason, that was the one I latched on to. Reviewing the band’s history and discography now, I realize that this first foray was very much at the tail end of their career and I was listening to a band that was already no longer particularly cohesive. Maybe they never were. Too many drugs and other trappings of Southern California rockstardom.

Even though it’s inexcusable for anyone who professes to write about music on the web to admit to liking them, the Eagles were of course deeply influential, and their aesthetic (coupled, maybe, with the Beach Boys and CSN&Y) permeates every aspect of what we call country and ‘country rock’ today. Even still-active bands in related genres that are beyond a shadow of a doubt ‘credible,’ like Blue Rodeo, Wilco or Carl Newman’s New Pornographers, are more than a little indebted to the Eagles’ way of marrying country/folk harmonies to danceable, old-style rock ‘n’ roll. And their classic songs, themselves distilled archetypes built from classic country and continuing a journey begun by Gram Parsons, the Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival and others, have become models for much of what followed.

Like mid-70s Fleetwood Mac (another guilty pleasure I proudly admit to and whose defense I’ll write up one of these days), the production values of records like Hotel California are fantastically detailed and flawlessly well thought out. I’m not sure whether I should say they demonstrate studio mastery: they probably do, but given the incredibly long months/years these artists spent in the studio, I have to imagine productivity was quite low. Whether that was because the equipment – though expensive and great – was cumbersome to use, or whether there were other factors (dissent in the ranks, drugs, too much free time) is unclear to me. Either way, the resulting records sound like studio magic. They have an unmatched clarity (well, I think there are some ‘matches,’ like the Mac’s Rumours…), an anologue warmth and a very spacious balance. They also have real drama.

The Very Best of Eagles is a very nice package and, I think, worth getting for even the most unconvinced Indie listener who’d never consider listening to the Eagles. To understand why you’re manning the barricades, it’s often interesting to return to before the revolution and be open to things as they were then. If you like Carl Newman’s full harmonies/wall-of-sound approach, you might wonder where that came from. This is where. The other audience demographic (to use labelspeak) that would probably really enjoy listening to this is the ‘urban country’ crowd in small towns all over North America. The reason the Eagles are on classic rock format radio and country stations rarely play them is related to formulaic corporate programming norms (and taxonomies created by music historians) rather than any base in reality.

There’s a certain 1970s superstar fabulousness to what the Eagles may sing about; an imagined hippie America that was, even then, probably an entirely mythical place.

Take it easy, take it easy | Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy [...]

Or, of course, a little further along in the same number, the always-classic lines:

I’m a standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona | I’m such a fine sight to see | It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford | Slowin’ down to take a look at me | Come on baby, don’t say maybe [...]

These situations and sentiments are both completely familiar and completely strange to us now. That’s because the Eagles (and various country/rock predecessors and cohorts) invented them. As a band, they are perhaps the final truly commercial embodiment of this ethic.

After them, popular music changed forever. It fragmented, renewed itself a hundred times; and with each split and rebirth came layers and layers of judgment about what had come before. Now, in 2008, it’s still ‘common knowledge’ that you’re not supposed to think the Eagles are cool. If you’re over 35, you can maybe get away with listening to them and liking them (in your own car, with the windows rolled up… and maybe with the volume lowered a little when you pull up at an intersection just to make sure nobody outside overhears you). But you’re certainly not allowed to think they’re cool. Given the quality of their music, it’s essentially irrelevant whether they were ever cool. Theirs is a great, lasting body of song that should be heard.

That morning, they were playing new Canadian music. Still half asleep, I heard a strikingly good song called “These Roads” by Dave Gunning, a singer/songwriter from Nova Scotia. I grabbed my Blackberry and keyed in ‘Dave Gunning’ so as to not miss it :)

A few days later, I went to Dave’s website at http://www.davegunning.com and ordered his latest CD, “House for Sale,” which arrived within the week (I only figured out later that it’s all available at my friendly local HMV, thinking – obviously – that I was onto something cutting-edge and indie :). It’s an exceptionally well-produced, great-sounding album. If I were pressed to peg the style, I’d say it’s somewhere between Blue Rodeo and Great Big Sea with a little Hank Williams Jr. thrown in as seasoning. It’s got a certain East Coast earnestness to it, but also a wonderful melodic clarity and precise, crisp songwriting. The arrangements are well-judged and played.

This doesn’t happen to me often, but this CD has been playing in my car practically nonstop for a few days now. I may just have been in the mood for something with a little twang (I have times in my life where no particular genre in music satisfies me and I meander around aimlessly but frustratedly until something random really resonates and I really get into it). But I’d certainly recommend Dave Gunning warmly to anyone interested in that Canadian folk-country-rock nexus or good singer/songwriters. I think it’s good enough to transcend any genre-skepticism you may have associated with ‘country’ or ‘folk.’
In the meantime, I’ve also bought Dave’s previous album, “Two-Bit World,” and it’s just as good. Very impressed. (Yes, I know the album covers are a little cheesy :)