featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
June 2, 2024
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster is the promontory from which we survey the vast frontiers of roots music. This week, Wilco shared plans for a new EP. Hot Sun Cool Shroud is set for a June 28 release, courtesty of the band's dBpm label. On the verge of bigness, Red Clay Strays are looking at a July 26 date for their next LP. Made By These Moments comes on behalf of the RCA label. One of our favorite americana songwriters, Amanda Anne Platte & the Honeycutters have been releasing consistently fine records since 2009. Their next volley, The Ones That Stay, should appear August 9 via Mule Kick. Another quality writer, Caleb Caudle, is set for another release cycle. He will unleash Sweet Critters on August 30. Finally, Leif Vollebekk is planning his first full-length in about five years. Revelation will arrive on September 27 (Secret City).
What makes a song true? Since the very earliest days, R&B has maintained an abiding commitment to authenticity in the music we champion. We expect our stuff to be genuine, our lyrics to mean something, and our artists to demonstrate integrity. Even when a songwriter's lyrics are existential, as Joe Kaplow terms his own work, we can apply the measure of artistic or poetic resonance to determine a music's truth, as squirrely as such a subjective measure may seem.
From Santa Cruz by way of Berklee College Of Music, Joe Kaplow tells no clear stories on his third full-length collection, Posh Poodle Krystal and Toe, though his bleary-eyed lyrical impressions ring true nevertheless. The multi-instrumentalist played nearly everything on his 2021 Sending Money and Stems, bouncing ideas and drafts off producer Mike Coykendall during the pandemic months. For his inaugural post-pandemic sessions, Kaplow assembles a band of longtime friends in Bart Budwig's Enterprise, Oregon studio for a more collaborative, fly-by-your-pantseat approach.
The resulting studio looseness serves Kaplow's songs well, adding a rambling, off-the-cuff spirit. A spidery acoustic guitar crawls through "Avery", contrasted to the echo of a ringing electric and a scuttling snare. Like Big Thief's acoustic pieces, Kaplow's ensemble works with a light instrumental touch, never resorting to unnecessary noodling. "So Many Times" establishes engaging, slightly askew rhythms, growing with strings and woven backing vocals: More important than sex / More important than the dime / More important than words / How the futures align. Accordingly, Posh Poodle Krystal and Toe takes its title from the nicknames of the core quartet, Jeff Wilson (drums), Rob Armenti (guitars, keys), Elliot Kay (bass), and Kaplow himself.
As a vocalist, Joe Kaplow recalls fellow unorthodox singers such as Vic Chesnutt, Matthew Houck, or Youth Lagoon's Trevor Powers. The fingerpicked acoustic "The Sequel" might bring to mind the freak-folk of Victoria Williams, speaking to a simplicity and sweetness, even as the singer suggests, Fairy tales are problematic / Happy-ever-afters are a lie. Kaplow mesmerizes on "Sympathize With Killers", deploying a lyrical flow like a verbal high-wire act: You always take the opposite side / Just for the sake of argument / A natural born contrarian but / It's scary, it wears on me when / Everything I do or dare to say is prey. Even at over seven minutes, the song manages to be suspenseful, with its reverb electric guitars suggesting a cosmic quality as they soar and spiral wonderfully.
Kaplow's cohort's steady professionalism and abiding restraint makes these moments of relative abandon all the more emotionally effective. With its heavier drumming and guitars, "Mastodon" seems almost dense in comparison, also the occasion of the singer's most uninhibited performances. Those guitars also appear on "Tunnel Vision", especially as they growl to life for a buzzsaw solo and Wilson's powerful drumming: I like to keep in control, Kaplow confesses: My shoes are organized according to their size / So you can see how it's hard for me / To never really get to own a home.
On Posh Poodle Krystal and Toe, Joe Kaplow and his outfit speak to their own truth, generating a seemingly cosmic vibe with their feet firmly planted, without resorting to silly studio tricks or embarrassing lyrical laziness. Colored with accents of pedal steel, "Loner" is lovely in its California country coolness and Link Wray rumble-ing guitar strikes: She's a dog and I'm a cat / That is that / Stars are brighter where I'm at. "Rock and Roll" is built on a kaleidoscopic arrangement as it addresses the decidedly unglamorous touring lifestyle: Rock and roll is not what I thought / I'm hanging 'round a parking lot / Trying to pick my friends up from the bottom. Like recent work from Jeffrey Silverstein, Rose City Band, or Cory Hanson, Joe Kaplow's new record, out now on the ever-reliable Fluff & Gravy label, helps to further define and strengthen the current boundaries of alt.country.
ROUTES-cast June 2, 2024
- Anna Tivel, "Silver Flame" Living Thing (Fluff & Gravy, 24)
- Caleb Caudle, "Sweet Critters (ft John Paul White)" Sweet Critters (Caudle, Aug 30) D
- American Aquarium, "Cherokee Purples" Fear Of Standing Still (Losing Side, Jul 26)
- JP Harris, "Beautiful World" single (Bloodshot, 24) D
- Steve Earle, "I Ain't Ever Satisfied (live)" Alone Again ... Live (Howe Sound, Jul 12) D
- Kyle Daniel, "Summer Down South (ft Cadillac Three)" Kentucky Gold (Daniel, Jun 28) D
- Sammy Kay, "Meet You In Mexico" July 1960 (Sell the Heart, Jul 19)
- Valerie June, "High Note" single (Stax, 24) D
- Jana Mila, "Like Only Lovers Could" Chameleon (New West, Aug 30)
- Steve Dawson, "Time To Let Some Light In" Ghosts (Pravda, Jun 7)
- Melissa Carper, "Borned In Ya" Borned In Ya (Mae Music, Jul 19)
- Amy Annelle, "Pull Tabs and Broken Glass (ft Jolie Holland)" The Toll (High Plains Sigh, Jul 27) D
- Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore, "Trying To Be Free" Texicali (Yep Roc, Jun 21)
- Kim Richey, "A Way Around" Every New Beginning (Yep Roc, 24)
- Yarn, "Grieve On" Born Blessed Grateful & Alive (Symphonic Distribution, Jul 26)
^ Joe Kaplow, "Loner" Posh Poodle Krystal and Toe (Fluff & Gravy, 24)
- Stewart Forgey, "Look For the Truth" Nature Of the Universe (Curation, 24) D
- Jeff Crosby, "Silver Lining" Another Petal Falls Off the Rose (Runnin' Free, Jul 26) D
- LA Edwards, "Comin' Around" Pie Town (Bitchin', Jul 5) D
- Felice Brothers, "Flowers By the Roadside" Valley Of Abandoned Songs (Million Stars, Jun 28)
- Lonesome Shack, "Fresh Bones" Song Of the Horse (Owl Head, Jul 19) D
- Cassandra Lewis, "So Bad" Lost In a Dream (Low Country Sound, Jul 12) D
- Buffalo Tom, "Recipes" Jump Rope (Scrawny, 24)
- Bill Mackay, "Oh Pearl" Locust Land (Drag City, 24)
- Richard Thompson, "Trust" Ship To Shore (New West, 24)
- Swamp Dogg, "The Other Woman (ft Margo Price)" Blackgrass: From West Virginia To 125th Street (Oh Boy, 24)
- Night Beds, "Knoxville" Mountain Radio (Arkansas Blues, 24) D
- Efterklang, "Plant" Things We Have In Common (City Slang, Sept 27)
- Anna St Louis, "Farther Away" single (Woodsist, 24) D
- Maya de Vitry, "Compass" The Only Moment (Mad Maker, Jul 12) D
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