ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 24, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

FAVORiTE SONGS of 2019

I've never actually tried to count the number of records I've added each year, let alone tally how many songs land on our ROUTES-cast playlists. Even more elusive is trying to pin down what magic combination of lyric, tune and arrangement keep a song resonating from week to week, landing ultimately on our end-of-year favorites list.  There was a recent year when it dawned on me that most of my favorite songs fit snugly into a certain chord progression ...  Nevertheless, I prefer to think I'm far more complicated than that, driven by romantic and mysterious forces beyond our knowing.  Or what have you.

What I do know is that these are some pretty good songs.  Some are from records that will turn up on our favorite albums list on December 8, while others are outliers from projects that might not have resonated too deeply with me as a whole.  They're not in any specific order, though if pressed I'd have to say Brittany Howard's "Stay High" might take the top spot for me.  That besides the fact that, having seen the video a couple times, I have a hard time hearing the song without conjuring a mental picture of Terry Crews ...  Here's a stab at my 5 favorites:

Brittany Howard, "Stay High"
Yola, "Faraway Look"
JS Ondara, "Saying Goodbye"
Fernando Viciconte, "I Don't Know"
Leo "Bud" Welch, "I Come To Praise His Name"

But no review today, no wordy appreciation of a new record.  I'm already prepping next week's favorite albums list, and that takes a bit of time and includes a lot of words.  So make yourself a pile of toast and a pot of thick sludgy coffee, open up your Spotify, and enjoy some of the most worthy music of the past dozen months.  As always, feel free to share your own favorite songs via comment or emailed to routesandbranches@gmail.com


- Matt Woods, "Hey Heartbreaker"  Natural Disasters  (Lonely Ones, Jun 28)
- Strand of Oaks, "Ruby" Eraserland  (Dead Oceans, Mar 22)
- Alexa Rose, "Borrow Your Heart" Medicine for Living  (Big Legal Mess, Oct 4)
- JS Ondara, "Saying Goodbye" Tales of America  (Verve, Feb1)
- Joshua Ray Walker, "Canyon" Wish You Were Here (State Fair, Jan 25)
- Sturgill Simpson, "Make Art Not Friends" Sound & Fury  (Elektra, Sep 27)
- Have Gun Will Travel, "American History" Strange Chemistry  (MBurke, Jul 12)
- Steel Woods, "Rock That Says My Name" Old News  (Woods, Jan 18)
- Blank Range, "Change Your Look" In Unison  (Sturdy Girl, Feb 1)
- Anna Tivel, "The Question" The Question  (Fluff & Gravy, Apr 19)
- Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, "Take Heart Take Care" Take Heart Take Care  (Big Legal Mess, Aug 30)
- Caroline Spence, "Long Haul" Long Haul  (Rounder, May 3)
- Chris Knight, "I'm William Callahan" Almost Daylight  (Drifters Church, Oct 11)
- Ags Connolly, "I'll Say When" Wrong Again  (Finstock, Nov 1)
- Kelsey Waldon, "Kentucky 1988" White Noise/White Lines  (Oh Boy, Oct 4)
- Shovels & Rope, "Carry Me Home" By Blood  (Dualtone, Apr 12)
- Leo Bud Welch, "I Come To Praise His Name" Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name  (Easy Eye, Mar 8)
- Larry & His Flask, "Full Time Job (Do What You Want) (demo)" Everything Besides  (Xtra Mile, Jul 19)
- Fernando Viciconte, "I Don't Know" Traitors Table  (Viciconte, Jun 21)
- Whippoorwill, "Eventide" Nature of Storms  (Whippoorwill, Nov 15)
- Felice Brothers, "Special Announcement" Undress  (Yep Roc, May 3)
- Will Bennett & the Tells, "Rabbits" All Your Favorite Songs  (Jewel Boy, Jul 26)
- Luther Dickinson, "Superlover (feat. Birds of Chicago)" Solstice  (New West, Mar 22)
- Daniel Norgren, "Let Love Run the Game" Wooh Dang  (Superpuma, Apr 19)
- Yola, "Faraway Look" Walk Through Fire  (Easy Eye, Feb 22)
- Shane Smith & the Saints, "Whirlwind" Hail Mary  (Geronimo West, Jun 28)
- River Arkansas, "Gone In the Morning" Any Kind of Weather  (River Ark, May 30)
- Angie McMahon, "Slow Mover" Salt  (Dualtone, Jul 26)
- John Moreland, "East October" LP5  (Old Omens, Feb 7 '20)
- Brittany Howard, "Stay High" Jaime  (ATO, Sep 20)


Even though this Episode is dedicated to Songs We Enjoyed More Than Some Others in 2019, we've still be working on stuff to share with everyone as we turn the calendar pages into 2020.  You'll find it all just by clicking A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  This week, we found room for the January 17 release of Legendary Shack Shakers' Live From Sun Studio, as well as Gill Landry's Skeleton At the Banquet (Loose, Jan 22).  No better gift for the New Year than Drive-by Truckers' announcement that they'll be sharing The Unraveling on the final day of January.  Been awhile since we heard from Califone.  Their Echo Mine makes its debut February 21 via Jealous Butcher Records.  That same day, we'll be welcoming Bright Lights Long Drives First Words from Nora Jane Struthers.  Finally, save space for Sadler Vaden's Anybody Out There on March 6.  And here's that ROUTES-cast that wraps up our favorite songs for the year:

ROUTES & BRANCHES
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 17, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

Was a time when an alt.country outfit named Patti Fiasco served up some of the strongest stuff originating from our faire Square State.  Much of that credit was due to frontperson Alysia Kraft, whose presence threatened to overflow the small stages upon which the band performed.  As fate would have it, Kraft crossed paths with singer-songwriter Staci Foster at SXSW some years ago, launching a partnership that would become Whippoorwill. With drummer Tobias Bank in tow, they've just unleashed the full fury of their debut full length, The Nature of Storms.

There's something elementally right about a trio, the merging of paths, three distinct musical visions.  In the case of Whippoorwill, Foster brings a strong foundation of indie folk which Kraft heats and bends in a country direction, and Bank's array of percussive expression gives the project an unexpected edge.  When it all comes together, the triumvirate generate their own storm front, a dark and sometimes tempestuous cloudburst of sound and emotion.

While I've followed Kraft for years, and I've been familiar with Bank's work with the heavy blues-rock outfit Von Stomper, Foster's voice is a revelation to me as a singer and a writer.  In both capacities, she provides the perfect balance for Kraft, an entrancing sound which defines the tone for Nature of Storms.  The group sets into "Cold Sound" cloaked in an atmospheric reverb, Kraft adding punctuation to Foster's voice before Bank's tripping drums kick in, dragging angular, stabbing guitars close behind the tuneful drive: Autumn brought colors that I'd never seen before / And I wanted something to change.  The three voices on "I Got Drunk" fold together seamlessly like those of classic Fleetwood Mac, introducing an original fourth voice.

Foster sings: I recall you calling me crazy / But that's not really me / It's just the way you made me.  Nature's songs speak of weathering storms, meteorological, emotional, social and otherwise.  One of the record's most contemporary tracks, "California" speaks to the escape of the road, chasing a tentative promise on the horizon: I don't need to cut and bleed to know I'm alive / California, won't you please just be kind.  Emotions color the horizon like clouds, and the songs can read like a map from the thicker, overcast "Great Lakes" to the sonically brighter "Martindale": I was born a supernova / 4th of July middle of nowhere / Master blaster firecracker, made to self-destruct.

Foster's harmonica drills through several cuts, and Kraft's electric guitar is Whippoorwill's secret weapon.  The arrangement is especially potent when arrayed alongside Foster's recurring banjo.  Producer J.Tom Hnatow, a member of the similarly expressive Horse Feathers, adds shining touches of pedal steel and guitar atmospherics to color to the edges.  There are unexpected gestures throughout the record, like the distorted drum that kicks "Premonition" into gear, like an overworked motor struggling to life.  "Change Gonna Come" juxtaposes crunching electric guitars with free-floating pedal steel, reminding listeners that the steady tide of change is life's only constant.

"Eventide" stands as the album's highwater mark, a steady-rolling roots-pop gem recalling HC McEntire and Mount Moriah.  Like McEntire and company, Whippoorwill assemble familiar musical components in appealing and unanticipated combinations.  Kraft sings: I'm gonna take 27 to Amarillo / Leave my broken heart in the hotel room / With the residue of cigarettes and strangers / With the hum of the AC and cicadas.  Nature of Storms addresses issues of seasons, distance and letting go.  The collection outlines the picture of a life in flux, perhaps moving away from disappointment and doubt, but looking ahead into the glare of possibly brighter things.  Whippoorwill has spent the past couple years honing their vision and adding miles to their sound.  With strong promotion and a little luck, there's no reason their appealing roots blend won't lift the members above the clouds and onto the national scene.


- Glossary, "Bitter Branch" Better Angels of Our Nature  (Young Buffalo, 08)
- Rosanne Cash, "Time" Come On Up To the House: Women Sing Waits  (Dualtone, Nov 22)
- Jack Broadbent, "Wishing Well" Moonshine Blue  (Creature, 19)  D
- Wood Brothers, "Cry Over Nothing" Kingdom In My Mind  (HoneyJar, Jan 24)
- Joe Henry, "Famine Walk" Gospel According To Water  (Worksong, 19)
^ Whippoorwill, "Martindale" Nature of Storms  (Whippoorwill, 19)
- Bart Budwig, "Human Again" Another Burn On the Astroturf  (Fluff & Gravy, Jan 24)  D
- Ron Pope, "Wait and See" Bone Structure  (Brooklyn Basement, Mar 6)
- Wayne Hancock, "Life's Lonesome Road" Man On the Road: Early Bloodshot Years  (Bloodshot, 19)  D
- Fruition, "Forget About You"  Wild As the Night  (Fruition, 19)
- Aubrie Sellers, "Far From Home" Worried Mind  (Soundly, Feb 7)
- Gabriel Birnbaum, "Not Alone" Not Alone  (Arrowhawk, Nov 22)
- Leif Vollebekk, "I'm Not Your Lover" New Ways  (Secret City, 19)
- Grand Champeen, "Broken Records" Battle Cry For Help  (Glurp, 01)
- Hallelujah the Hills, "People Keep Dying" I'm You  (Discrete Pageantry, 19)
-Mail the Horse, "Sweet Red Lies" Mail the Horse  (Baby Robot, Nov 22)  D
- Freakwater, "Sway" Too Late To Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots  (Bloodshot, 19)
- Low Anthem, "To the Ghosts Who Write History Books" Oh My God Charlie Darwin  (Nonesuch, 09/19)
- Vetiver, "Up On High" Up On High  (Mama Bird, 19)
- Secret Sisters, "Cabin" Saturn Return  (New West, Feb 28)  D
- Terry Allen, "City of the Vampires" Just Like Moby Dick  (Paradise of Bachelors, Jan 24)
- National Grain, "Norfolk Southern Line" National Grain  (Old Wheat, 06)
- Grahams, "Bite My Tongue" Kids Like Us  (Three Sirens, 20)  D
- Bill Fay, "Filled With Wonder Once Again" Countless Branches  (Dead Oceans, Jan 17)  D
- Bonnie Prince Billy, "New Memory Box" I Have Made a Place  (Drag City, 19)
- Micah Schnabel, "Emergency Room" Teenage Years of the 21st Century  (Here You Go, Dec 3)  D
- David Dondero, "Easy Chair" Filter Bubble Blues  (Fluff & Gravy, Jan 24)
- Chuck Prophet, "High As Johnny Thunders" single  (Yep Roc, 19)  D
- Handsome Family, "Capital City" Wilco Covered  (Uncut, 19)  D
- Ben Weaver, "Here's To My Disgrace" Just One More: Musical Tribute to Larry Brown  (Bloodshot, 07)


Hey all, don't forget that we've got a couple Very Special Episodes on the horizon between now and year's end (beginning next week!):

* Week of November 24: Favorite Songs of 2019
* Week of December 8:  Favorite Albums of 2019
* Week of December 22: Holiday Episode
* Week of January 5:  Favorite Albums of the Decade

All this time, we'll continue adding new stuff to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster.  This week, for instance, we re-added Micah Schnabel's Teenage Years of the 21st Century, since it finally has a release date (Dec3).  British folk writer Bill Fay continues his career resurgence with Countless Branches (Dead Oceans, Jan 17).  Looking into February, we've saved some space for Chicago Farmer's Flyover Country (Feb7) and Secret Sisters' Saturn Return (New West, Feb 28), produced by Brandi Carlile.  While we have yet to track down a date for Kids Like Us by the Grahams, one of Richard Swift's final projects prior to his passing. 

ROUTES-casts from 2019 have been removed; subscribe to our Spotify page to keep up with all our new playlists!

ROUTES & BRANCHES  

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music

November 10, 2019

Scott Foley, purveyor of dust

I've listened to music all my life.  But I came of age during an odd time, a circumstance that dictated somewhat my perspective on what's come to be known as "classic rock" (then simply known as "rock").  My first Grateful Dead record, f'rinstance, was Go To Heaven, largely forgotten save for their highest ever charting hit, "Touch of Grey".  My first Bowie experience came under the influence of Scary Monsters.  I learned of Neil Young from Hawks & Doves, and Emotional Rescue gave me my first taste of the Stones.  Similarly, when Little Scott decided to get to know Bob Dylan, I purchased a copy of Street-Legal (certainly nobody's choice for his career high point).  Perhaps if I'd been born five years earlier my experience would've been completely different, more typical.  There but for fate ...

I mention this by introduction of 16, a new 2-LP labor of love from Robbie Fulks (my first taste of Fulks came with 1998's alt.country highwater mark, Let's Kill Saturday Night).  In the ensuing years, the Chicago-bred artist has worked through an encyclopedic range of roots expressions, from the superb americana of Georgia Hard to the Grammy nominated folk of Upland Stories and last year's lark with The Killer's little sister Linda Gail Lewis, Wild! Wild! Wild!  As a connoisseur of left-of-center cover songs, I'd be amiss if I didn't mention Fulks' 2010 collection of Michael Jackson songs, or his sprawling 2009 project, 50 vc. Doberman.  But for 16, he's turned his restless attention to that curious Dylan period where the bard fell briefly under the influence of the just-passed Elvis and Leonard Cohen, a foray which would result in Street-Legal.

Robbie Fulks actually happens to be a skilled prose writer, as evidenced on his blog where he published a piece prefacing 16.  In a curious turn, the new collection is available only on LP - that's right, it's vinyl.  Fulks writes about being driven by his vision of a project that does justice to the turntable: ... one of my main motivations in doing this current record ... was to have one release I could point to in my life that had no audiophilic compromises ... There would be some analog component pre-mastering. And the finished thing would be available only as an LP, denying many potential listeners their preferred medium but assuring me that my efforts and expenditures wouldn't end at earbuds and laptops.  All of which means that you won't find songs from 16 populating our weekly ROUTES-casts at this time.  It's a consummately indulgent endeavor at some level, leading Fulks to advise fans recently against purchasing the relatively pricey double-LP, investing instead in joining him at an upcoming concert event.  Readers in search of a delightfully jargon- and opinion-filled explanation of the how's 'n why's of the vinyl process would be advised to spend some time with Fulks' blog (sound quality is harder to maintain as the circumference of the disc tightens ...).

For Dylan, Street-Legal arrived in the wake of a pair of critically acclaimed works, Blood on the Tracks and Desire (and it would lead into his "Christian trilogy").  Rather than reconvening his successful collaboration with Rolling Thunder Revue, he assembled a largely new supporting cast which introduced horns and gospel-influenced backing singers.  For his 16 sessions, Robbie Fulks maintains those delightfully dated touches, while crowding the studios with a celebration of Chicago's finest, including members of NRBQ, Flat Five, Superchunk, Waco Brothers and more.  While he's come to be primarily regarded as a folk artist, Fulks sounds great as a bandleader fronting a revue of his own.

A short liner note assures us that 16 is not a tribute to Street-Legal, and Fulks' treatment of Dylan's 9 songs assures that there is no undue reverence or slavish recital.  Far too much ink has already been spilt poring over these works, and few if any artists have been so adoringly covered.  Fulks is seemingly content to simply spend some time experimenting in his musical sandbox.  Just about every faithful reproduction is balanced by a more creative departure from Dylan orthodoxy.

"Changing of the Guards", for instance, slows the original significantly, trading Dylan's call-and-response with his backing singers for atmospheric pedal steel and Jenny Scheinman's restrained violin.  "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" and "Where Are You Tonight" are rendered nearly unrecognizable, both treated through a dark wash of foreboding psychedelics.  Fulks' lovely "No Time To Think" becomes a pastoral folk number, supported by little more than unvarnished fingerpicking and a backing chorus.  His written comments about his own early relationships with records could just as likely apply to these departures:  ... their records were replete with quirks, mistakes, eccentricities, holes you could fill in yourself.

There is an abandon to even the album's quieter cuts, a loose groove that appears most indelibly as Fulks' accompaniment grows and the pace quickens.  "True Love Tends To Forget" is soulful, with prominent horns and a strong bridge.  "Is Your Love In Vain" is truest to Dylan's original, showing Fulks in his most flattering light as a bandleader.  These moments find the singer, with a voice so perfectly suited for roots music, pushing that instrument towards its furthest reaches, emerging at times like Neil Young astride Crazy Horse in his heyday.  Nowhere is this more evident than on "New Pony", here engineered by the great Steve Albini.  Bluesy electric guitar and organ stomp and buck, establishing a genuinely bad and nasty grind that may catch even longtime fans of Fulks by surprise.

Time will tell if 16 earns a wider release, or if Robbie Fulks' wishes to keep it from your earbuds will be honored.  It's not necessarily the most suitable entry point into his oeuvre, but I would hope the project proved enjoyable enough that Fulks might be convinced to reconvene some of the players to pound out an album of his originals (suitable for release, of course, on all formats).  For now, we're pleased to luxuriate into these deep and roomy grooves, grateful for the opportunity to stretch our legs as we walk to the turntable to flip the LP every two or three songs.


- Whippoorwill, "Eventide" Nature of Storms  (Whippoorwill, Nov 15)
- Ruston Kelly, "All Too Well" Dirt Emo Vol 1  (Rounder, 19)
- Kasey Anderson, "Wiseblood (new edit)" To the Places We Lived  (Anderson, Dec 19)  D
- Ron Pope, "Practice What I Preach" Bone Structure  (Brooklyn Basement, Mar 6)  D
- Lucinda Williams, "I Lost It" Car Wheels On a Gravel Road  (Island, 06)
- Cave Singers, "Beat Just To Hang On" 5 Song EP  (Cave, 19)  D
- Simon Joyner, "You're Running Away David" Pocket Moon  (Grapefruit, 19)
- Terry Allen, "Death of the Last Stripper" Just Like Moby Dick  (Paradise of Bachelors, Jan 24)  D
- Nude Party, "Poor Boy Blues" Hot Tub  (Nude Party, 16)
- Futurebirds, "Waiting On a Call" Teamwork  (VL4L Records, Jan 15)
- Half Gringa, "Wearing White" Too Late To Pray: Defiant Chicago Roots  (Bloodshot, 19)
- Austin Lucas, "Ain't We Free (live)" No One Is Immortal  (Last Chance, 19)
- Richard Buckner, "Rafters" Dents & Shells  (Merge, 04)
- Michael Kiwanuka, "You Ain't the Problem" Kiwanuka  (Polydor, 19)
- Districts, "Hey Jo" You Know I'm Not Going Anywhere  (Fat Possum, Mar 13)  D
- Esme Patterson, "Light In Your Window" single  (BMG, 19)  D
- Gabriel Birnbaum, "Mistakes" Not Alone  (Arrowhawk, Nov 22)  D
- Cody Jinks, "Think Like You Think" After the Fire  (Late August, 19)
- Ags Connolly, "Lonely Nights in Austin" Wrong Again  (Finstock, 19)
- Allison Moorer, "Ties That Bind" Blood  (Autoelic, 19)
- Jamestown Revival, "Dead Wrong" single  (Jamestown, 19)  D
- Silver Jews, "Wild Kindness" American Water  (Drag City, 98)
- Blackie & the Rodeo Kings, "World Gone Mad" King Of This Town  (Divine Industries, Jan 24)
- Trampled by Turtles, "Fake Plastic Trees" Sigourney Fever  (Banjodad, Dec 6)  D
- Sarah Lee Langford, "Painted Lady" Two Hearted Rounder  (Cornelius Chapel, 19)
- Dexateens, "Broken Objects" Sunsphere  (Cornelius Chapel, 13)
- Erin Enderlin, "Hell Comin' Down" Faulkner County  (Black Crow, 19)
- Joe Pug, "I Don't Work In a Bank" single  (Pug, 19)  D
- Crooked Fingers, "Sweet Marie" Red Devil Dawn  (Merge, 03)
- Miranda Lambert, "Settling Down" Maverick  (Vanner, 19)


Here's where we encourage you to click over to A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, the blog's puzzlingly accurate record release calendar, updated on a whim.  This week, f'rinstance, we added a couple holiday-scented releases from the McCrary Sisters, Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters and a rare compilation for our Jewish friends, Hanukkah+, all due in your cornucopia on November 22.  The Dualtone label will be a bit late to the party, offering Dualtone Christmas the following week.  Trampled by Turtles have been stretching out into unexpected territory lately, like we like.  We're thrilled that their December 6 EP will be christened Sigourney Fever, boasting covers from Warren Zevon, Iris Dement, Radiohead and more.  Looking into 2020, we'll herald the new year with the release of Just Like Moby Dick from Terry Allen (Paradise of Bachelors, Jan 24), and As We Go Wandering from the perennially reliable Possessed by Paul James (Jan 31).  The close of January also brings us new records from Cave Flowers (feat. a former member of Vanish Valley), but we'll have to wait 'til March 13 for The Districts' I'm Not Going Anywhere  (Fat Possum). 

ROUTES-casts from 2019 have been removed; subscribe to our Spotify page to keep up with all our new playlists!

ROUTES & BRANCHES  
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 3, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of fine literature

Round about this time last year, we took a look at Jeff Tweedy's WARM record, alongside his excellent memoir, Let's Go (So We Can Get Back).  Longtime R&Bers will know that literature holds as high a place as music in my life, and I have a warm room in my heart for books about music.  It's the rare music memoir that earns its stripes as a literary work.  Off the top of my head, Patti Smith's done it a few times.  Rosanne Cash and Rodney Crowell have both exceeded expectations.  Elvis Costello, Levon Helm's This Wheel's On Fire.  Please add to this shortlist Allison Moorer, whose Blood is an eloquent exploration of the legacy of family violence.

Similar to Tweedy, Moorer has simultaneously released a companion record of sorts, a testimony to her skills as a writer of songs.  Music is a recurring, bonding and defining presence throughout her memoir, most specifically the classic country that was shared during family gatherings and that she breathed like the heavy air of her deep South Alabama home.  While she was warmly embraced by the Nashville establishment as a very young artist, Moorer hasn't released a proper country project at least since the early 'oughts. Her records are typically introverted, often "dark" and rarely upbeat.  Gifted with a voice that conveys volumes of emotion, she's built a career of telling her story.

And that story is a notorious one.  As told in the book, Allison Moorer and her sister Shelby Lynne were raised by an abusive, alcoholic father who would eventually take his own life and that of their mother.  Blood isn't a tell-all or a whodunnit.  Shared in short chapters like a catalog of snapshots, an inventory of memories, it's as much about what happened as it is about a survivor's struggles processing it all.  Digging through her father's briefcase.  Requesting and poring over her parents' autopsy reports.  Moorer writes of her father: Am I to believe he had a tender heart buried underneath the misery he showed the world so much of the time? Of course I am. Of course I do. (p5)

I listened to Blood, the album, a couple times prior to reading the memoir, then several times after setting the book down.  Especially in the wake of Moorer's story, the songs can be haunting and heartbreaking, beautiful and intimate.  Like just about every other one of her releases.  Allison Moorer writes with a sharp unsparing pen, paring out superfluous words and passages until all that shines through is pure and honest.  "Bad Weather" opens the album: Crazy girl in my speakers / Moaning 'bout her man / Trying to sound like Kathleen Edwards / But trying don't mean that she can.  Her voice rings throughout the new collection, an expressive instrument that needs little accompaniment or studio support.  Alongside producer Kenny Greenberg, she's built the album of her career.

As with just about any Allison Moorer record, there are just a couple more rocking tracks.  "Rock and the Hill" is a gospel tinged number, delivering the simple but haunting refrain: Why?  Drums like stomping feet propel "All I Wanted (Thanks Anyway)", a heavier rock 'n soul cut that reminds us how the singer draws as much from country as she does soul.  But most of the songs on Blood speak more directly to what Moorer has termed hillbilly Stockholm syndrome, a strain of PTSD that has assured her family stories are as present today as they've ever been.  In the book, she writes: Our story is made up of memories just like the story of every family. Some are good, some are bad. Some make me break out in a sweat and my head spin even today, even though they have all of those years on them. (p148)

The line between the story and Moorer's songs is seamless, never seeming heavy-handed or unnecessarily literal.  On "Cold Cold Earth" she turns her family's story into an Appalachian death ballad: Everyone was sleeping under an August moon / Except one man that sat awake, slowly going mad.  The gorgeous "Nightlight" serves as a lullaby, seemingly in tribute to the bond she shares with "Sissy".  Moorer gives cowriting credit to her father Franklin on the sad and bluesy ballad, "I'm the One To Blame".  Blood is a concept album, though for those who haven't yet read the book it stands sturdily as a collection of worthy songs.  As the title suggests, the prevalent thread addresses inheritance, what's carried forward from generation to generation.  On the standout "Ties That Bind": Why do I carry what isn't mine / Can I take the good and leave the rest behind.  The author Moorer states it more succinctly: Does our blood make us who we are? (p150)

Regarded as a piece, Allison Moorer's CD and book stand as the year's most impactful, emotionally resonant statement.  I haven't felt a book so deeply since Joan Didion's memoirs about the passing of her husband and daughter (Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights - read 'em and weep).  Blood is a glimpse into a raw wound, a lovestory written to a family that Moorer both adores and resents.  The lifelong fury she directs at her father is tempered only by her aching desire to understand him.  Most striking is the range of real emotion she demonstrates towards her mother and father, the insoluble brew of love and guilt and hatred and pity that she carries to this day.  It's a project that is fraught with feelings that are difficult to bear, especially for listeners or readers for whom the topics land close to home.  But it's what matters about books and music, finding commonality and unexpected understanding, discovering a mirror to hold up to better comprehend who we are.  And then sharing it with one another.  Look what I've found ...

Magic churns around everywhere and it can be harnessed with the right tools ... To see an artist in her full glory renders the world bearable.  (p255)

- Futurebirds, "My Broken Arm" Teamwork  (VL4L, Jan 15)  D
- Matthew Ryan, "And It's Such a Drag (band version)" Future Was Beautiful  (Need to Know, 19)  D
- Austin Lucas, "Let Me In (live)" No One Is Immortal  (Last Chance, 19)  D
- Leif Vollebekk, "Apalachee Plain" New Ways  (Secret City, 19)
- Amanda Shires, "Box Cutters" Down Fell the Doves  (Lightning Rod, 13)
- Railroad Earth, "Great Divide" All For the Song  (RRE, 20)  D
- Michael Kiwanuka, "Rolling" Kiwanuka  (Polydor, 19)  D
- Rev Shawn Amos & the Brotherhood, "Counting Down the Days" single  (Amos, 19)  D
- Nick Lowe, "Has She Got a Friend" Convincer  (Yep Roc, 01)
- Ags Connolly, "I'll Say When" Wrong Again  (Finstock, 19)
- Itasca, "Comfort's Faces" Spring  (Paradise of Bachelors, 19)
- The Deer, "Interstellar Frontier" Do No Harm  (Keeled Scales, 19)
- Vetiver, "Living End" Up On High  (Mama Bird, 19)
- Eleven Hundred Springs, "Thunderbird Will Do Just Fine" Bandwagon  (Palo Duro, 06)
- Marcus King, "Wildflowers & Wine" El Dorado  (Fantasy, Jan 17)
- Hallelujah the Hills, "It Still Floors Me" I'm You  (Discrete Pageantry, Nov 15)
- Twain, "Royal Road" Adventure  (Keeled Scales, 20)
- My Darling Clementine, "Heart Shaped Bruise" Country Darkness Vol 1  (Fretstone, 19)  D
- Evan Felker & Carrie Rodriguez, "Whiskey In Your Water" Next Waltz Vol 2  (Next Waltz, Nov 29)  D
- Simon Joyner, "You Never Know" Pocket Moon  (Grapefruit, 19)
^ Allison Moorer, "Bad Weather" Blood  (Autoetic, 19)
- Neal Casal, "There's a Reward" Return in Kind  (Fargo, 05)
- Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster, "Learn You" single  (Big Legal Mess, 19)
- Maria McKee, "Effigy of Salt" La Vita Nuova  (Fire, Mar 13)  D
- Fruition, "Wild as the Night" Wild as the Night  (Fruition, Nov 8)  D
- Massy Ferguson, "Lagrande" Damaged Goods  (Spark & Shine, 11)
- Delines, "Wait For Me" single  (Jealous Butcher, 19)
- Joe Henry, "In Time For Tomorrow" Gospel of Water  (Edel, Nov 15)
- J Tillman, "There Is No Good In Me" Year in the Kingdom  (Western Vinyl, 09)
- Drunken Prayer, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" single  (Drunken Prayer, 19)  D

This week we inaugurated new stuff into A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster from Merge Records, who has debuted a new holidayish collection featuring Fruit Bats, Hiss Golden Messenger, William Tyler and more.  We'll be ringing in the New Year to the tune of Jason Molina, as Secretly Canadian will be releasing Live at La Chapelle on January 1st.  Athens, Georgia's eclectic Futurebirds are setting January 15 for the introduction of Teamwork, just a scant few days before Pinegrove share Marigold.  British folk maverick Sam Lee will collaborate with Cooking Vinyl Records for a January 31 release of Old Wow, and that same day we'll welcome Dustbowl Revival's Is It You Is It Me.  Best Thing Ever this week is Maria McKee's declaration that she'll be returning with her first new recording in 13 years - La Vita Nuova is slated for March 13.