Recorded in his off time from touring this album sounds like the stripped down extension of his Edward Sharpe persona. Ebert dips into and mixes different influences from Dylan to Springsteen in what is a spontaneous mix of ideas all loosely linked under the folk umbrella.
Cougar writer Thom said “although Alexander Eberts solo effort didn’t quite match the epic ‘Up From Below‘ of his dayjob, what it did deliver was painfully pretty and haunting concise pop songs. It is modest, timeless and irresistible“.
Lying somewhere between the raw, British honesty of Laura Marling and the playful creativity of Sufjan Stevens, Katie Malco thoughtfully and optimistically breaks our hearts with this tightly packed 5 song EP.
There is something very pure about one persons vision of a song that can captivate me more than some bands.
‘Johnny‘ is the lucky son of a bitch that Malco beautifully and innocently calls to: “What does she do that I can’t give you? I cant write a song but I bore your children for you.”
That sort of truthful and delicate poetry belongs in the legend league along with Joni Mitchell or maybe Patti Smith. Musically it swells with banjos and horns before exploding into silence so Malco can be alone with her guitar again.
Likewise, ‘Get In The Car‘, that proceeds it is possibly even prettier. ‘Get in the car and drive, we may not make it out alive‘, she calls while a distant choir, warmly chorus back to her.
‘Florence Nightingale’s House‘ is as timeless as a Dylan record, with lyrics as thoughtful and poignant as a Mark Twain quote.
In the age of computers and digital sound, I don’t think we will ever tire of honest, gritty story telling and the simplicity of a lone struggling soul with a guitar and a load to bare.
‘Katie Malco and The Slow Parade EP‘ is out on Alcopop! records.
“I could never pretend that I don’t love you, you could never pretend that I’m not your man, it’s exactly the way that I want it, it’s exactly the way that I am.“
I’ll be honest, I haven’t heard such a poetically honest lyric on love since “I’m not saying you treated me unkind, but you just wasted my precious time” from Dylan.
It would be very easy to compare this exciting gritty folk band to Mumford & Sons given their recent huge success with break neck speed pop folk. But Im not going to. So there.
‘Wait So Long‘ Trampled By Turtles from their debut album Palomino is a train on fire heading toward a raveen with a fella full of regret but not fear. It has the wisdom of Willie Nelson and the energy of the whole of Minnesota.
The finest part of this song is that not only has it kept the grit and dirt of it’s roots keeping it timeless and honest, but it’s modest in it’s effort. Even it’s over blown cacophony of strings cannot drown out the catchiest sung country chorus of the year.
A huge sun and a huge moon hung in the Old Vic Tunnels as part of a cosmic art installation when I went to see Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros. It was the light and the dark, symbolising very well what the band express to the extreme, amidst a psychedelic backdrop of beautiful wierdness.
Alex Ebert takes the bright side of their sound and takes it away from the demons and the bad memories and gives us his debut solo album; Alexander.
It seems as if, rather than a departure from Edward Sharpe, Ebert just had too many ideas and too much zest for life to be able to wait for the next album. His rasping yet joyful wails float dreamily upon distant eukele, and guitar echoes, whilst rhythm is rarely more than the shaking of a tamborine or a hand clap. And it needn’t be more. The more lo-fi sound, suits what is Ebert‘s biggest asset; his massive voice.
Had Ebert been around in the summer of love in San Francisco he could have been at the center of the face painting and the casual fornication, and converted thousands to his visions and great music. Not that he doesn’t have this now, I just doubt he hears quite as many cries from audience members as “I’m going to get naked because I’m free and I can! Who’s with me?!” Or maybe I’m wrong.
The truth is, despite the beautiful pictures Ebert paints, he’s actually a very diciplined song writer, that carefully crafts his sound into accessible songs. ‘Old Friend‘ sounds like a long lost folk tale from the turn of the century sang into a canyon. Whereas ‘Lets Win!‘ could be a country song from the early sixties that sounds so familiar, yet fresh sounding enough to brighten any Monday morning.
‘Glimpses‘ is an epic confession that because Ebert‘s voice is so raw, sounds like it was sang on the spot, and as with ‘Bad Bad Love‘, his voice couldn’t be more evocative. It’s like Dylan if he was a little less of a miserable sod.
Basically, Alexander Ebert sounds like an epic travelling gypsy who has told his tales far and wide giving him a true gift for writing and performing. This is course ss opposed to the kind of singing travelling gypsys who I usually encounter that sound like they should be gently put down.
A friend and I once had a debate that ended in the agreement that solo singer songwriters have to have either one of two things to keep us interested: Good lyrics or balls. These raw emotional qualities we find most clearly in pop history from Bob Dylan. The balls department is effectively covered by Johnny Cash.
Bruce Nathan aka everyBOY‘s sophomore album ‘Parachute Mind‘ combines some very classic Southern Californian folk with some neat electronic and analog instrumentation to fill out his uplifting stories on darkness into light.
Like the debate, he has managed strong open hearted lyrics with a little more balls than your average solo man; “I’ve been crawling through a cloudy haze“, He croaks into a wall of strings and minor note guitar picking.
Musically it felt like a cross between latter day Lindsey Buckingham (with a whiskey hangover) being backed by The Weepies. Tunes like ‘Life Is 4 Living‘ are sweet and enchanting yet have an undertone of sadness and of a sensitive and thoughtful soul that’s very much lost in a modern world.
The title track reminded me of the energy and imagination of “Down To Earth” by Peter Gabriel, a soulful yet playful effort that put forward the pop elements of folk.
A studier of Japanese arts and philosophy, everyBOY‘s words are what bring forth his strength. He brings messages of hope and love like George Harrison with the melancholy of Neil Young.
Singer songwriters will always be around, but they tend to be few and far between when it comes down to it. EveryBOY has not only future proofed his songs with very cool electronics and instrumentation but has made them sound timeless too.
Yoni Gordon and The Good‘s impressive 2009 album ‘Turning Chaos Into A Career‘ merited a spot in our end of year top albums list.
The troubadour was back this year with the album ‘Country For The Timid‘ offering a completely different angle. Temporarily parking The Goods in favour of a guitar and voice combo makes this is very much a back to basics album.
Yoni Gordon trades hooks and upbeat melodies for a far more sombre sound channeling Springsteen and Dylan interlinked with the great travelling bluesmen.
In his own words:
“These are tough times we are living through. Tougher than that. It won’t do to put on a party record right now. Country for the Timid is an album for these times”.
A few months ago we ran a competition giving Cougar Microbes readers a free copy of TuneUp to fix their music collection.
We asked the question: If you could rearrange/fix/change any musical moment that has happened in history what would it be?
This was the outstanding in our books by a guy called Blue:
1. Light Aircrafts
Ban them. They took Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, country star Patsy Cline, John Denver, Otis Redding, Big Bopper, half of Lynrd Skynryd, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ozzy guitarist Randy Rhoads, and Aaliyah to name but a handful. No wonder the tour bus is such a popular transportation option.
2. Finding God
Once the Big Guy gets under an artist’s skin the work tends to suffer. Al Green went from making the sexiest music known to man to making gospel albums known to nobody. P.Diddy protege Mase quit hip-hop for the ministry, and when he came back his skills didn’t. The less said about Bob Dylan‘s born-again albums the better, and just picture Jehovah’s Witness Prince proselytizing door-to-door in purple pumps. Esther (née Madonna) caused quite the mishegas by hopping onto Kabbalah’s New-Age-Judaism bandwagon. And Cat Stevens loved Islam so much he named himself after it when he converted, then quit the music business in 1979. Silly rock stars — you’re supposed to be the ones being worshipped!
3. “Colonel” Tom Parker
Before Suge Knight, Lou Pearlman or even AllenKlein came the “Colonel” – inventor of ruinously exploitative rock management. Getting his hooks into Elvis in 1955, the Dutch con man artfully steered the King away from making music and towards the likes of Clambake, Kissin’ Cousins, Kid Galahad, and about 30 other Hollywood forgettables he made instead of recording or touring for most of the next decade.
4. Electric Violins
Say no more
5. Nearly Every Hip-Hop Video
We get it. Your ride is pimped, your crib is a castle, you sip “Cristal” and have a queue of semi-naked hoes lining up to get into your jacuzzi. Congratulations to a generation of hip-hop video directors for making decadence seem so boring.
6. Braided Goatees
Just grow those chin whiskers out a foot, part in the middle, and weave pube-like braids. Tragically, the resulting blood loss to the head severely lowers IQ levels, resulting in guttural vocals and misspelled band names.
TuneUp are currently hosting a holiday sale so click here to get a 20% discount on “the perfect holiday gift for music lovers”
For 24 hours (starting Monday morning at 5 am) Bob Dylan is giving away a new track on his site as a taster for new album ‘Together Through Life‘, released at the end of April.
On ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin‘ it is clear Dylan still loves messing around with genres and this one sounds like that Buena Vista Social Club meets Coldplay album or one of Santana’s “superstar” collaborations. The growly old voice is still there and the Dylanesque imagery and poetry are definitely in place.
However, I can’t help but feel that he is barely breaking a sweat here and like every Dylan album there will be a couple of tracks that are much more accomplished on the album proper. The fans will continue to buy his records regardless but this isn’t going to attract many new fans.
At the very least the new track has made me fish out and listen to ‘Blood On The Tracks‘ and ‘Highway 61 Revisited‘ and that can only be a good thing.
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Alex Ebert‘s dedication to writing music showed no signs of slowing down in 2011. Having wowed us with THAT Magnetic Zeros album and resurrected Ima Robot recently he also found time to release his solo album named simply ‘Alexander‘.
