ROUTES & BRANCHES 
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 28, 2018
Scott Foley, purveyor of leaf mulch

We're fast approaching that time when we begin to rake together our favorites lists for the year, generated through a magical mix of intuition, guilt and twenty-sided dice.  I'll select dates for the sharing of our favorite songs and albums in next week's Episode (watch this space).  For today, we'll have to settle for five standouts from the past couple weeks, in order of appearance:

WHAT's SO GREAT ABOUT OCTOBER?!! 
Will Hoge, My American Dream  (Edlo, Oct 5)
JP Harris, Sometimes Dogs Bark at Nothing  (Free Dirt, Oct 5)
Larry & His Flask, This Remedy  (Xtra Mile, Oct 12)
Becky Warren, Undesirable  (Warren, Oct 19)
Jamie Lin Wilson, Jumping Over Rocks  (JLW, Oct 26)

There.  Even as we're efforting our year-end lists, we're looking forward to adding stuff into the mix from Daniel Romano and Ryley Walker.  We'll lovingly pore over deluxe reissues from Hiss Golden Messenger and Songs: Ohia.  And there will be records from a solo Rhett Miller and a decidedly jolly Old 97s.  All that and Jeff Tweedy and Timber and Rosanne Cash ...

On Thursday, July 12th, an auspicious message appeared on Hillstomp's Facebook page:  The next album has pedal steel and fiddle on it.  Followed a bit later in the comments:  and bass pedal synth ... Moog Taurus if I remember correctly.  Not necessarily an unusual proclamation for most bands, but for Henry Hill Kammerer and John Johnson (infamous for digging through the dumps and backwoods of American music) it announced a new direction.  Hillstomp has earned their stripes on the strength of a raucous live act, nearly two decades of leaving it all on stage.  While Monster Receiver incorporates some new sonic strategies, it's far from the Mumford-ication of Portland's favorite hill country punk duo.

Never in a hurry to commit to vinyl, this is only Hillstomp's sixth collection, and their first since 2014's Portland, Ore.  Early projects brought us indelible originals such as "Don't Come Down", "NE Portland, 3am", and the trademark "Cardiac Arrest in D".  Much of their oeuvre, however, has consisted of familiar hill country blues, chopped in a blender and shot through a firehose.  Aside from their updated run through "Cluck Old Hen" (yeah, my life would've been fine without another take on that one), Monster Receiver drops more of the duo's own songs.

But yeah, it's still Hillstomp, still a DIY affair lashed together with electric tape and barbed wire.  "Snake Eagle Blues" is mired in muddy vocals, primitive percussion and manic slide guitar.  "Goddamn Heart" features Kammerer on banjo, along with something that sounds like a didgeridoo, plugged in and fuzzed out, and some truly wicked harmonica from I Can Lick Any SoB's Dave Lipkind.  Both find the duo in their swampy element.  Hillstomp has always been more about the groove than the song, masters of conjuring a mood as opposed to telling a story.

When lyrics happen to stray beyond a chanted phrase or two, the band is still in service of the hammer rather than the pen.  "Hagler" establishes that repeated guitar line before sweeping the listener up into a full scale sonic garage assault:  I got a girl and she hits so hard / Like Marvin Hagler drunk in a bar ... / She's gonna win, but I'm gonna fight again. "Pale White Rider" is a Halloween appropriate tale, a bluesy haunt punctuated by rattling chains and some of Receiver's most ambitious vocals:  I help lost souls to find the light.  Kammerer's banjo is featured on some of my favorite cuts, from the folky "I'll Be Around" to the fiery Southern gospel of "Way Home".

So what is it that sets Hillstomp's new project apart from the rest of their work to date?  With producer Josh Shepski and mixer John Askew, the duo satisfy the needs of loyal 'Stompers, dotting the rattling I's and crossing all the T's that have built them into a stageworthy sure thing.  Curiously, it's the quiet.  Monster Receiver offers a couple tracks that find Kammerer and Johnson stepping back from the edge for a spell.  The gothic gospel of "Angels" floats in a cloud of tentative electric slide guitar, echoing off the church walls (or alley walls):  Well I believe in angels you can see ... / Just like you and me they're walking down the street.  Most notably is "Dayton Ohio", a tender song Kammerer has written for his parents featuring Anna Tivel's fiddle and some pedal steel courtesy of Erik Clampitt.  It speaks to Hillstomp's reputation when a tune like this passes for daring, though it certainly stretches the band in a novel way.

The good people at Fluff & Gravy Records call Hillstomp "folk music in its purest form", and I would agree that the duo dwells in that satisfying space where the purity of folk mingles with the DiY ethic of workingclass punk.  Even opening the door a crack to new sounds and contributors. nobody will mistake Monster Receiver for anything but what it is.  Like cheap old favorite trucker hat set to music.

- Mark Erelli w/Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Lori McKenna, Anais Mitchell & Josh Ritter, "By Degrees"  single  (Erelli, 18)  D
- Rosanne Cash, "Eight Gods of Harlem" She Remembers Everything  (Blue Note, 18)
- Rhett Miller, "I Used to Write in Notebooks" The Messenger  (ATO, 18)
- Carson McHone, "Gentle" Carousel  (Nine Mile, 18)  D
- Kevin Welch, "Blue Lonesome" Dust Devil  (Dead Reckoning, 18)  D
- Whitey Morgan & the 78s, "Hard to Get High" Hard Times & White Lines  (Morgan, 18)
- Ruston Kelly, "Son of a Highway Daughter" Dying Star  (Rounder, 18)
- GospelbeacH, "Down South" Another Winter Alive  (Alive Naturalsound, 18)  D
- Long Ryders, "10-5-60" Native Sons  (Prima, 84)
- Town Mountain, "North of Cheyenne" New Freedom Blues  (Tone Tree, 18)  D
- Carter Sampson, "Ten Penny Nail" Lucky  (Horton, 18)  D
- Daniel Romano, "All the Reaching Trims" Finally Free  (New West, 18)
- Ryley Walker, "Diggin' a Ditch" Lillywhite Sessions  (Dead Oceans, 18)  D
- Langhorne Slim, "Boots Boy" Be Set Free  (Kemado, 09)
- Jessica Pratt, "This Time Around" Quiet Signs  (Kemado, 19)  D
- Becky Warren, "Highway Lights" Undesirable  (Warren, 18)
- Nick Dittmeier & Sawdusters, "Two Faded Carnations" All Damn Day  (Eastwood, 18)
- Mike Stinson, "Late Great Golden State" Jack of All Heartache  (Boronda, 02)
- Dillon Carmichael, "It's Simple" Hell On An Angel  (Riser House, 18)
- Kelly Pardekooper, "Bloody Gasoline" 50 Weight  (Pardekooper, 18)  D
- Jamie Lin Wilson, "Oklahoma Stars (feat. Evan Felker)" Jumping Over Rocks  (JWL, 18)
- White Buffalo, "Love Song #2" Prepare For Black & Blue  (White Buffalo, 10)
- Doug Paisley, "Starter Home" Starter Home  (No Quarter, 18)
- Sturgill Simpson, "Panbowl" Metamodern Sounds in Country Music  (High Top Mt, 14)
- Pistol Annies, "Masterpiece" Interstate Gospel  (Sony, 18)
- Steve Gunn, "New Moon" Unseen In Between  (Matador, 19)  D
- Anna Tivel, "Fenceline" The Question  (Fluff & Gravy, 19)  D
- Michigan Rattlers, "Late Night Cigarette Talks" Evergreen  (Rattlers, 18)
^ Hillstomp, "Dayton Ohio" Monster Receiver  (Fluff & Gravy, 18)
- Trampled by Turtles, "We All Get Lonely" Life is Good on the Open Road  (Banjodad, 18)

Good new noise this Episode from indie folkers Steve Gunn and Jessica Pratt.  We also begin our journey through projects from Carson McHone and Carter Sampson.  Ryley Walker offers his second record of 2018 with a collection of unreleased Dave Matthews covers (?!).  We're also thinking Pistol Annies may be among the strongest mainstream country records of the year ...