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"While the term "Southern gothic" has become a shorthand description for the Sixteen Horsepower sound, Folklore suggests that the group has embraced the tag. They've redefined their brooding tone by constructing a ruined sonic landscape populated with sullen figures searching not for redemption but catharsis. Filled with murder ballads and tales of sin and redemption, Folklore is the sound of a sinner chasing away both the demons that torment him and the loved ones who fail to see that he has been haunted and changed. That stressful balance is embodied by David Eugene Edwards' wailing vocals, which remain a stunning hybrid of Gram Parsons' white-collar cowboy and Tom Waits' avant-garde crooner. Folklore is the dark side of Americana, almost completely devoid of the hopeful inflections that render so much of that musical tradition life-affirming.
Nearly half of the songs on Folklore are traditional compositions re-arranged and given new life by Edwards and company, which is a testament to 16HP's ability to craft such unique and absorbing atmospheres and textures from tunes that have been available for generations. The propulsive dirge of "Blessed Persistence" is a ghastly torch song, combining elements as diverse as the Violator-era atmospherics of Depeche Mode, the minimalist string arrangements of Rachel's and the stylized guitar sounds of Ennio Morricone's most famous spaghetti-western soundtracks. Imagine an exhausted Robert Plant fronting a vocal interpretation of Labradford's Mi Media Naranja and you'll begin to understand the depth and complexity of the track. Similarly, "Outlaw Song" recalls the dynamism of Zeppelin III, sprite acoustic instrumentation colliding with swelling bass sounds and galloping rhythms. Meanwhile, the raucous, foot-stomping sing-along "Single Girl" (a Carter Family composition) and the album-closing "La Robe a Parasol" are uptempo, uplifting numbers that stand in relief from Folklore's otherwise dark lyrics and sombre instrumentation. The dissonant interplay of violin and banjo on many of the tracks evokes contemporaries like Dirty Three and Palace, their decidedly modern perspective on loss and loneliness informing the timeless aura of the tunes. Each track is strong enough to stand on its own, yet fits with precision into the overall structure of the this Old Testament-fashioned epic.
Revealing itself slowly, like the mythic tales acknowledged by the album's title, Folklore is certainly Sixteen Horsepower's most stunning and accomplished work yet, and an easy nominee for one of 2002's best."
01. Hutterite Mile
02. Outlaw Song
03. Blessed Persistence
04. Alone and Forsaken
05. Single Girl
06. Beyond the Pale
07. Horse Head Fiddle
08. Sinnerman
09. Flutter
10. La Robe a Parasol
David Eugene Edwards: vocals, banjo, mandolin, bazuki, saz, nylon guitar
Jean-Yves Tola: percussion
Pascal Humbert: vocals and double bass
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
"Back when I was just a boy, I was desperate to discover that new and unfathomable thing called music. Digging through all of the mysterious devices in the forboding dust of our basement, one day I discovered an old AM radio. With its fake- wood peeling off and single dial, it would always play better when I was touching it. I'd lay there in the darkness of my bedroom, trying to comprehend the tinny sound coming out, songs played by the DJs relegated to the radio wasteland of the dial that counted frequencies in the hundred and tens.
One evening at 9:05 PM I heard the song "The Devil Came Down To Georgia" and everything changed. I listened to that station every night thereafter at 9:05 PM in search of the song, my tiny mind seeking order in the chaos of radio. I eventually moved on to other things, but I never really forgot that fantastic song.
Perhaps it was the sinister content, the endless struggle between good and evil set to raucous southern fable that grabbed me, perhaps it was the otherwordly fiddle. I may never know. What I do know is that the memory of that song rose up like a redneck on malt liquor the moment I turned on Sixteen Horsepower's Low Estate. 13 tracks of fiddle, bass, bandoneon, drums, concertina, hurdy gurdy and cello, blended into a thoroughly sinister mix that speaks directly back to my AM radio and the feeling you get in a southern graveyard when you hear the wolves in the distance.
Low Estate is packed with dark, forboding images, both lyriaclly and instrumentally. Moaning cello telling a tale of ghostly "Phillys Ruth," a slightly picked guitar recounting a hanging, it's pure frontier storytelling that somehow reached my ears through a century of waiting. Deep country roots, fed by the blood of our ancestral criminals, prospectors and cowboys, Low Estate exhibits a true American originality so rare in a country obsessed with looking forward and forgetting the past."
01. Brimstone Rock
02. My Narrow Mind
03. Low Estate
04. For Heaven's Sake
05. Sac of Religion
06. The Denver Grab
07. Coal Black Horses
08. Pure Clob Road
09. Phyllis Ruth
10. Black Lung
11. Fire Spirit
12. Golden Rope
13. Hang My Teeth on Your Door
14. Ditch Digger
15. The Partisan
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
