featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
April 7, 2019
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
Here's a good place to start. Morgan Geer, the man behind Drunken Prayer, has served as guitarist for Freakwater. He's spent some time on the road with Handsome Family. Throw in there too that he's recruited pop maestro Mitch Easter to engineer his fifth CD, Cordelia Elsewhere (Deer Lodge), and you'll be close to triangulating your expectations. Perhaps as an apertif you could spend some time with last year's Morgan Geer's Drunken Prayer, a collection that collates career highlights (see "Always Sad", "Balloons", "Johnny Paycheck's Cocaine" f'rinstance) which Geer records with just the company of an acoustic guitar.
I hate what you did to my town / So I moved to another town. Geer's new project follows on the heels of a move from Portland to Asheville ("from PDX to AVL", he sings in the title track). His eclectic work seems more at home there, nearer the South's humidity and tradition. One of the record's fuller cuts, "Cordelia" recalls The Band with its soul-drenched organ and New Orleans vibe. "Into the Water" haunts a similar corner, with a touch of gospel that never seems to be far from Drunken Prayer's musical toolkit: Muddy water set me free / I hope the water isn't clean / I am a prince with dirty feet. "Ni Ni Neo" adds soulful guitar, pushing Geer's voice to its limits.
Geer has never overspent with regards to production or arrangement, confident in his pocket even as his influences range wider than you might expect. At times his music is more akin to pop (a'la Nick Lowe or Ron Sexsmith) than with americana. Some of those roots trappings are there, but that's just the air he breathes, the water in which Drunken Prayer swims. With most songs clocking in around the three-minute mark, he wastes little time before casting a hook. "Science" rides on the mantra, Just because it's science doesn't mean that it's not beautiful, alright. And while his songs are populated by angels and devils and fifty foot locust trees, Geer's delivery tends to balance wisdom with absurdity. Like Warren Zevon or Randy Newman, he sings from a perennially bemused window on the world.
As a writer, Morgan Geer favors words that sound good alongside one another. Little broken Jesus on a freshly mowed down stump - The meaning will look after itself. With a punk attitude and the spirit of an early rocker, "It Happens All the Time" clings to a steady drum beat and a solid guitar line: I was a puppet on a string / In a world full full of string. The lovely "Rubble and Dust" casts a warm but fragile vocal atop an acoustic arrangement, in service of one of the record's most lasting lyrics: The angels do not trust us anymore / From the dark end of the street she's singing / How I live matters more than what I believe.
Drunken Prayer may be sardonic, but the good-natured moments vastly outnumber the bitter or resigned. Over the space of 2013's Into the Missionfield or 2015's highlight Devil & the Blues, Geer earned our ears by creating sounds that were at once familiar and confidently other, lyrics that spoke to the everyday while letting in those ghosts. And more than many artists with bigger budgets and more prominent labels, his songs draw widely from a diversity of influence. Cordelia Elsewhere feels good going down, and never wears out its welcome.
- Jimbo Mathus, "South of Laredo" Incinerator (Big Legal Mess, 19)
- Dwight Yoakam, "South of Cinncinnati" Guitars Cadillac Etc Etc (Warner, 84)
- Rod Melancon, "57 Channels" Pinkville (Blue Elan, 19)
- Big Thief, "Cattails" UFOF (4AD, May 3) D
- Felice Brothers, "Special Announcement" Undress (Yep Roc, May 3)
^ Drunken Prayer, "Ni Ni Neo" Cordelia Elsewhere (Deer Lodge, 19)
- Gabe Lee, "Last Country Song" Farmland (Torrez, 19)
- Courtney Hartman, "January First" Ready Reckoner (Soundly, Jun 14) D
- Joey Kneiser, "Adelina" All Night Bedroom Revival (Young Buffalo, 10)
- David Quinn, "Tried and True" Wanderin' Fool (Quinn, 19) D
- Sam Outlaw, "Love is On a Roll" single (Black Hills, 19) D
- Amanda Anne Platt & Honeycutters, "18 Wheel (live)" Live at the Grey Eagle (Organic, May 24) D
- Dead Man Winter, "New Orleans" Bright Lights (Banjodad, 11)
- Caroline Spence, "Wait on the Wine" Mint Condition (Rounder, May 3)
- Bohannons, "My Dark Roots" Bloodroot (Cornelius Chapel, 19)
- TK & the Holy Know-Nothings, "Tunnel of a Dream" Arguably OK (Mama Bird, May 24)
- Field Medic, "Bottle's My Lover, She's Just My Friend" Fade Into the Dawn (Run For Cover, Apr 19) D
- Freakwater, "Cloak of Frogs" End Time (Thrill Jockey, 99)
- Jake Xerxes Fussell, "River St. Johns" Out of Sight (Paradise of Bachelors, Jun 7) D
- Darrin Bradbury, "Newark" single (Anti, 19) D
- Ian Noe, "Between the Country" Between the Country (National Treasury, May 31)
- Ben Weaver, "40 Watt Bulb" Stories Under Nails (Fugawee Bird, 04)
- Mike Frazier, "Stay the Same" Where the Valley Kissed the Sky (Geneva, May 31) D
- Buddy & Julie Miller, "War Child" Breakdown on 20th Ave. South (New West, Jun 21)
- Fruit Bats, "Bottom of It" Gold Past Life (Merge, Jun 21) D
- M Lockwood Porter, "Waiting for a Sign" Communion in the Ashes (Blue Mesa, 19)
- Prescriptions, "Hollywood Gold" Hollywood Gold (Single Lock, 19) D
- Brooks & Dunn w/Kacey Musgraves, "Neon Moon" Reboot (Sony, 19) D
- Drivin' 'n Cryin', "Step by Step" Live the Love Beautiful (D'nC, Jun 21) D
- Kasey Anderson and Hawks & Doves, "Geek Love" Garden Sessions (Julian, 19) D
It's called A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster, and it's just to the right > It'll keep you up to date with all of our kind of music that's been released, that'll be released, and that's been announced in months to come. This week we added new stuff to the Guide from Fruit Bats, Drivin' n' Cryin', former Della Mae guitarist Courntey Hartman, Frankie Lee, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mike Frazier, and the national treasure Fernando Viciconte. What would you do without me?
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