Emma Ruth Rundle & Jaye Jayle – The Time Between Us

Collaboration / split releases can be a hit and miss affair, but when they work well, they are a joy to behold. They’re even better when they introduce someone to you who you wasn’t familiar with and now glad you are.

For me, that is Jay Jayle, which is not the name of the person but the entire outfit. Research tells me that this is the project of one Evan Patterson of the Young Widows.

This collaboration came about because both artists had songs leftover from their most recent releases, and decided to combine them onto a split release. Although they have different styles, said styles complement each other well. Emma Ruth Rundle’s songs are highly personal and emotionally charged, with a very late night feel to them. She’s really hard to put a label on and doesn’t really sound like anyone else that I’m aware of, and that’s a good thing. Jay Jayle is a more rootsy, alt-country-blues affair that likes to repeat the groove throughout the tune, reminding most of all of Little Axe, albeit without the samples, and that also is a good thing.

I had intended to do a post on Emma Ruth Rundle’s Some Heavy Ocean last year, but didn’t because it was such an interesting year (which I realise doesn’t tell you anything, but hey ho). Let it be known, however, that the album comes with a hearty recommendation. It contains some great tunes; the lady clearly knows her way around a song.

 

Wovenhand – Blush Music

.We interrupt this trip around the music I’d like to buy with a nod to a great album from 2003. Apparently, this was music that David Eugene Edwards wrote for Ultima Vez, a Belgian dance company, which may have something to do with having a less overtly religious theme than his usual fare.

It is also more laid back than the usual Wovenhand approach to things, which has been increasingly heavy in its southern gothic approach to americana. Check out the 14 minute version of Ain’t no Sunshine. There are occasional moments of upping the volume, though, and the contrast increases their power, a good example being Your Russia (without hands).

His previous outfit were 16 Horsepower, who made the absolutely wonderful Sackcloth & Ashes, a proper hoedown of an album with quite a preaching from the pulpit feel to the lyrics, all apocalyptic imagery and burn-in-hell admonishments. Despite that, I fackin love that album; the songwriting is astonishingly brilliant all the way through, and the arrangements are top notch.

 

Cosmic Triggers – Homo Fractaliens

So whilst we’re in Russia, here are the Cosmic Triggers.

This is not wholly unlike Sonora, but a more cosmic sort of space rock, with a kind of 90s feel to some of it. I hear Spiritualized style guitar work, G.O.L. style female vocals overlaying the repetitive, circular rhytms (‘we are all fractals of ourselves,’ she intones at one point, which is right up my alley, philosophically). I hear Thee Open Sex, a little bit of Goat, Verma, a slower Our Solar System, The Myrrors again… you know, I could go on. And I mean that in the best possible way, trying to illustrate that there is now so much brilliant music everywhere, and the fact that they all reference each other – probably without actually trying to do so – is part of a larger point that I may do as a macro-post at one point. These are truly wondrous times we live in.

Sonora – The Fire from Within

Methinks somebody has been reading their Carlos Castaneda.

Sonora are from Russia, which also plays home to Gnoomes, who my friend loves in an unhealthy way, and also the artist of the next post that will follow this one in some time frame or other, depending on how interrupted I get by the kids.

Musically, this is a very spacey, desert-rock sort of vibe. I’m mostly put in mind of a slightly crunchier The Myrrors without the flutes, or a mellower Dreamtime, with the circular and cyclical riffs that play such a large role. It’s instrumental, and that means it has to have something about it in my book. And it is a perfect accompaniment for a slightly bleary-eyed Saturday morning.

Charlie Parr – Hollandale

It never occurred to me to look for Charlie Parr on Bandcamp. It was after I did the recent post on Daniel Higgs that I had a look at the supporters collections – something I sometimes do – and found a follower called Charlie Parr. Could it be the same one, I thought?

See, I have in my digital archives an album called Roustabout by said artist released some years ago now, and I think it’s wonderful. Kind of a shit-kickin’ bluegrass thing going on, modern country blues, I suppose. Don’t ask me about genres and all that. So I did the search in the artist box and whaddya know… I don’t know if the supporter of ‘viv’ is the same one, I’m too stupid to figure it out (can you get to One Dog Clapping from my profile? I’m not sure you can), but nevertheless, there’s lots of Charlie Parr on Bandcamp.

This here Hollandale is actually somewhat unlike most of the recorded stuff I’d previously heard him do, in that it is largely improvised and somewhat more in the ‘American primitive’ tradition (another crap genre name – why is it that an American person sitting down with a guitar and jamming stuff out is labelled primitive?), I’ve heard similar stuff from John Fahey. But it is very hypnotic, not wholly unlike the way Crow Tongue hypnotise me.

And whilst you’re there, go over and listen to God Moves on the Water from Roustabout. I fackin love that one.