Not much I know about her yet, just discovered her fine, delicate music (actually she reached out to me via my Tumblr blog. Thanks Allana!).
Check out her fine 2015 release Absence here at her Bandcamp page
This is the first lovely song from Absence, Stranded
Oh, that sweet voice.
She’s about to release her next mini album In Your Hands in a few weeks time
I have been sharing videos and writing about one of Pieta Brown’s previous albums on here before, but I still have to get her latest album, Paradise Outlaw, which was released months ago. She’s the daughter of Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey who I greatly admire for his outstanding guitar work, is her husband, in case you are new to her. This is the latest video to one of the songs from the album and it’s untra-lovely.
I very much like this song, especially for the spoken intro. But the rest is smashing too.
Pieta Brown : Mercury
(2011 Red House Records)
Pieta Brown is Greg Brown’s daughter and married to Bo Ramsey, a longtime musical partner of Greg Brown. So you could say the apple doesn’t fall far from the stem, listening to Mercury. It’s released on Red House Records, the label Greg Brown releases his albums on as well (and that he founded back in 1981) and does feature Bo Ramsey, who delivers his always outstanding and tasteful guitar work throughout the album. In contrast to Ramsey’s fine 2008 album Fragile (see my review here: http://wp.me/p3wknx-4t) he’s accompanied by another guitar player, Richard Bennett, on most/all tracks. Another (rather more prominent) guest on the album is The Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler who is playing another guitar on So Many Miles.
It’s the first album by Pieta Brown I bought (but it won’t be the last) – and I like it a lot. The sound is a bit more contemporary than on either Greg Brown’s or Bo Ramsey’s albums, but that’s of course completely natural, given she does belong to a different generation. It doesn’t mean though that she doesn’t sound like a young women very much informed by her upbringing and (thankfully) possessing none of the hip big city vibes you could expect.
The sound is both modern and rustic at the same time, her voice the most defining characteristic on the album, at once a bit childlike and clear as well as self-assured and a tad raspy, hard to describe for me, but easy to love.
Naturally for me, the tracks with the least musical accompaniment are the ones I like best, namely I Don’t Mind or No Words Now (which isn’t THAT stripped down, but extremely lovely nevertheless). The album starts with the life-affirming and up-tempo Be With You, the next track Butterfly Blues is a fine showcase for Bo Ramsey’s trademark economic, bluesy lead guitar work – but it’s more than that, as it’s also an excellent song. Title song Mercury and the following How Much Of my Love are some of the more dreamy songs very well suited to her voice. I’m Gone and I Want It Back are lyrically, and in the case of I’m Gone musically, some of the more muscular and self-confident songs, the first one a fast(ish) Blues-Rock song and the second a slow, gorgeous Blues-Pop-Waltz song with a lovely string accompaniment.
Night All Day is the only track I find quite hard to like, a bit too bluesy for my taste. Closing Time is somewhat disappointingly not the Tom Waits song (would have loved to hear what they could have made out of that) but it’s a splendid song nevertheless. I rather like Glory to Glory a lot too – its fun, with a number of varied guitar parts, one of it sounding slightly old-timey, and I love the simple drums/percussion work on it too.
Mercury is a brilliant album and Pieta Brown well above most the other female Country-Folk-Pop artists of her generation, both as a songwriter and as a singer if you ask me.
Josh Ritter : Golden Age Of Radio
(2001, re-released 2009)
To be honest, I lumped Josh Ritter together with certain surfer-dude types populating the music scene in the mid 2000’s (can’t even remember their names) for a few years and didn’t take the time to find out how he actually sounds – until about the year 2010. And it took me until a few weeks ago to finally check out this, his second album.
Golden Age Of Radio was originally released in 2001, in hindsight I call myself lucky that I didn’t buy it until now, as I now own the 2-CD reissue version that on the bonus disc features the whole album played by him solo and acoustic in 2008 in Nashville, as well as a few extra-tracks such as an original demo version (also acoustic) entitled A Country Song which is actually the title track on the original album. Also featured is a nice, but somewhat unremarkable Don’t Wake Up Juniper (it’s a b-side after all) and two Jackdrag remixes (of Come & Find Me and Other Side) plus two quicktime videos I haven’t watched yet.
Some of the acoustic solo versions also show how much better Josh has become as a musician and a singer (listen to album opener Come And Find Me and Me & Jiggs and you’ll know what I am talking about), in the intervening years. But it could just be my proclivity for acoustic music as well – I love stripped-down, basic versions very much (as you will undoubtedly be able to see reflected in future posts on here). Which leads me to my main point of criticism of the original album, as fine as it is. It just shows all too clearly (starting with the booklet photos and the layout) that this is an early effort, and shows him often slightly awkward when it comes to his singing style and a number of tracks suffer from a peculiar slowness which doesn’t become them at all, possibly showing a band unsure yet of themselves. That’s especially the case with Roll On, Me & Jiggs and Harrisburg. All three tracks are recorded in much better versions on the acoustic bonus CD and, especially Harrisburg (minus the slightly annoying Wicked Game/audience interaction bit), on the very fine Live At Iveagh Gardens album (recorded in 2010 in Dublin). The newer versions of those tracks just sound faster, more energetic and just plain better than they do on here. Which is a bit of a shame, as all of them are excellent songs – Me & Jiggs for example, which is probably based on his own experiences in his youth (‘… sitting on a porch, singing Townes Van Zandt…’). Or Roll On – one of his best songs, sounding brilliant and a highlight for me on Live At…, on here it’s quite slow and the vocals aren’t that good.
All of this sounds quite negative, I just realized, but it’s not really meant to be – it is still a very good album: Absolutely fabulous (in both versions) is Leaving, a simple, folky acoustic tune (plus a bit of electric solo guitar). Other Side and Drive Away both remind me in sound/tempo and arrangement of a fairly typical Emo-influenced band (not the screaming kind) on the Polyvinyl label (American Football/Owen for example) – not surprising (and nothing to be ashamed of either!) perhaps given that these songs were probably written in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s – but these influences are long gone and nowhere to be found on his newer releases. Other Side is a lovely song too (particularly the acoustic version), the lyrics a good indication of where Josh Ritter hails from (Moscow, Idaho) – ‘… from the Northwest Passage to the Great Divide – Everybody’s looking for the other side…’.
I like Anne a lot too (again, both versions), especially the lead guitar part (on the original one) – the arrangement and vocals a bit rough hewn for sure, but as a composition it’s already pretty good indeed. Harrisburg has fast become a Josh Ritter fave of mine. As I said, the version on Live At Iveagh … is much better than the one on here, but what’s the same is a certain Southern (Rock) quality of the tune and the immortal lines ‘… and if evil exists it’s a pair of train tracks and the devil is a railroad car…’. You just have to love a song with that line in it, don’t you?
The best song by a long mile for me is Golden Age… – a surefire hit (not in the chart-topping sense, but quality-wise): The slow, acoustic one on the bonus CD isn’t bad at all, but even better is the original version, more up-tempo, nicely arranged and a certain hymn-like sensibility to it, and very fine, anthemic lyrics. Reminds me a bit of early Frames (who Josh Ritter was/is friends with) too. Definitely one of the very best songs he’s ever written and recorded.
Album closer Song For The Fireflies strays into dream-pop territory (and is better than the acoustic version, for a change).
As I mentioned above, Golden Age Of Radio could be described as merely being a pointer towards bigger, better things to come, but to do so and shrug it off as that would be a loss – the things making Josh Ritter as good as he is nowadays are already there. And you would, as I did for quite some time, miss out on hearing a quite a few brilliant songs.
He’s got some fabulous tour posters as well – see the store at http://www.joshritter.com
Josh Ritter : The Beast In Its Tracks
(2013 Pytheas Recordings/YepRoc Records)
Josh Ritter’s return after the lushly produced and arranged So Runs The World Away from 2010 is a much more restrained affair, featuring the usual bunch of talented musicians, nowadays known as The Royal City Band. As it is a break-up album, written and recorded after his marriage with fellow singer/songwriter Dawn Landes fell apart, it’s supposed to sound much sadder or more depressed than The Beast In Its Tracks actually does.
Yes, the arrangements are a quite stripped down and many of the songs are slow – but despite the lyrics reflecting the theme of a break up they don’t really sound all that melancholic. Take Nightmares for example – it’s a splendid song with a lovely tune and some fine solo acoustic guitar work by Josh Ritter himself augmented by a bit of keyboard and a bass guitar. What I always liked a lot about Josh Ritter is his voice, at once sounding resonant and full as well as neutral, with none of the extreme characteristics of people such as Bruce Springsteen or Tom Waits.
The album starts with the (very short) acoustic guitar/vocal song Third Arm, which nicely fades into second song Evil Eye, like almost all songs on The Beast… dominated by an acoustic guitar and a great tune. Next song A Certain Light is probably my fave song on the album, one of the loveliest – in a bittersweet kind of way – songs I heard in a long time, the lyrics telling about a new love he found, but as ‘she only looks like you in a certain kind of light’ implies, he’s still thinking about the love he lost a great deal.
Hopeful is probably the only song on here I don’t quite like too much, although it’s pleasant enough on its own right – but it’s just not AS good as the other songs. New Lover is one of the most fully arranged songs (together with Joy To You Baby and Hopeful) in a conventional Folk-Pop/Rock sense, with proper drums and intertwined guitar lines almost giving the song a nice Ambient-ish feel. I also love the last line ‘… but if you’re sad and lonely and you got nobody true I’d be lying if I said that didn’t make me happy too’.
Heart’s Ease features no less than four guitars all played rather delicately, so it’s by no means a rock-song. In Your Arms Again is maybe the most folky-sounding song on the album, slightly up-tempo with a light, airy feel to it. Maybe even more of a fave of mine than A Certain Light is The Appleblossom Rag, albeit in a very different way. It’s just a quiet song with just an acoustic guitar, Ritter’s voice and some kind of background noise, according to the liner-notes ‘gossip’, but actually more sounding like noise made in a kitchen, with rattling cups and such. I could listen to it for ages (I do that, actually). Afterwards, things get a tad more lively, starting with Bonfire, again a slightly folky, acoustic song, but more up-tempo and with equipped with a gorgeous tune.
Next track In Your Arms Again is as muck Rock as it gets on The Beast In Its Tracks, featuring almost a full drum set, although it’s only a bass and a snare drum (if I am not mistaken) and some background vocals giving it a rather full sound, compared to most of the other tracks on here. Next to last song Joy To You Baby is a summery, laid-back Folk-Pop tune and album closer Lights might be the most obviously melancholic track on the album.
As I mentioned, the direction is a bit of a surprise after So the World Runs Away, but nevertheless The Beast In Its Tracks is once again a fully convincing album by one of the best of the current young-ish crop of songwriters, and one I while most definitely be enjoying for ages.
Back Road Bound 