featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
October 8, 2023
Scott Foley, purveyor of dust
We're Not Lost: The Last Ride of the Show Ponies is a new film made by North Forty, following the folk quintet Show Ponies on their final tour. It's a scenario that likely plays out countless times during a year, as young and talented musicians face the tough decision to move on from their dreams. Jason Hawk Harris, Show Ponies' guitarist, expresses some optimism in being able to try new things as a solo artist. The open-faced Harris also mentions his own struggles in balancing the band's needs with the fact that his mother had just passed away. Roughly a year later, the solo Harris released Love & the Dark on Bloodshot Records, a collection haunted by the circumstances of her death.
Of course, between the pandemic and the dissolution of Bloodshot, Harris had little opportunity to generate due awareness for the project. Once the label was reformed, and monetary matters were settled, Harris was brought back onboard for his second full-length. Thin Places picks up where that debut left off, a concept album of sorts that continues to color in the story of the songwriter wrestling with his mother's passing. The new sessions feature much the same outfit surrounding Harris, including a cohort of Show Ponies alumnus: Producer/instrumentalist Andy Freeman, Philip Glenn on strings and piano, and drummer Kevin Brown.
Like Love & the Dark, these new songs speak from a Biblical vernacular, stories often peppered with a Christian mythology. Harris' song cycle begins with the ambient gospel of "Jordan and the Nile", his boyish vocal over the drone of a harmonium as we gather to add his mother's ashes to the eddying river. My uncle died praying for a miracle, he sings alongside Glenn's seesawing fiddle. Like Parker Millsap, Harris has no intention of preaching. Thin Places asks more questions than it answers, a blast of dark electricity interrupting the backing chorus. With unexpectedly bright colors and Afro-Latin rhythms, "Bring Out the Lillies" drops us in the midst of a congregation of mourners. Harris lurks like a question mark: Here I am sitting in church, and I don't know why. We're even allowed a glance into his mother's coffin: She's primped and adjusted / But she don't look any less dead. Glenn's essential fiddle spirals and swirls as the tune accelerates like an anxious, rising heartbeat. It feels like everyone's smiling and singing and praising too soon ...
Jason Hawk Harris won't keep us in church for too long. As we're aware, life intervenes and we're left grasping for meaning and emotional traction in the midst of navigating everyday survival. The singer turns to chemical stimulation on "Shine a Little Light", flirting with the edge in hopes of feeling something, anything. Adam "Ditch" Kurtz's pedal steel ensures that Harris' wide-ranging music remains rooted in country, even moreso than on his debut. From point oh-eight to point eight-oh / I didn't think that was possible, he sings. "I'm Getting By" skips on Brown's rushing percussion, another of the collection's songs whose upbeat musicality is juxtaposed with Harris' desperate search for balance: I don't like to ugly-cry in public too much. By "So Damn Good" he allows himself the distraction of his partner's beauty: Spiders spin their webs in lovely ways to catch her eye. God bless our superficial nature.
As Harris dances along these Thin Places, we're treated to some excellent playing from his band and backing vocalists. There's a point in the Show Ponies documentary where Philip Glenn notes that Harris has a recurring tendency to want to drive his music in new directions, to push beyond the traditions of folk and country. These extra moments are largely what can set his music apart from the pack, the guitar pulsing like a heartbeat monitor on "The Abyss". Harris relates a harrowing story of discovering his mother's history of sexual abuse while reading the diary she left behind, his Greek chorus of backing vocalists repeating, This little light of mine ain't shining. As with "Grandfather" on his debut collection, Harris ends Thin Places with his most ambitious work in "White Berets". Here the artist again brings together the country-folk with his more progressive classical training, interweaving Louisiana rhythms and accordion with more formal string arrangements. The rollicking rhythms slow, then fade into a celestial cloud of pedal steel and twinkling piano, until we're brought full-circle with Harris' epitaph: Little river let me float for awhile / I wanna see the Jordan swallow the Nile.
I'll take my glory with a little bit of shame, Harris sings on "Roll". The chorus swells with momentary gospel intensity, his voice reaching for its far edges. On Thin Places, Jason Hawk Harris delivers these value added moments on songs that simultaneously feed the need for good music while exceeding expectations with meaning-filled lyrics and passages that speak to the artist's impressive musical range. While Harris will surely move onto new topics as his career progresses, challenging himself to explore new avenues of expression, he demonstrates refreshing ability and ambition on his first two records. There is great reward in diving deep with Harris, joining him skipping stones across the abyss.
A Routes & Branches Guide To Feeding Your Monster is all you need to keep tabs on new and forthcoming releases for our kind of music. F'rinstance, we recently added news of a new Flatland Cavalry project. The band's major label debut, Wandering Star comes via Interscope on October 27. Canada's Elliott BROOD return with their first full-length in a couple years. Town will land on shelve wherever music matters on November 3 (Six Shooter). Among our favorite singer-songwriters, John Moreland presents his first live album on November 10. Live at Third Man Records features work from throughout his career, cut to lathe in real time (Nov 10). Roadside Graves' last record was inspired by SE Hinton's Outsiders. Set for a November 10 release, I Won't Cry Alone takes inspiration from the author's celebrated Rumblefish novel (Don Giovanni). Finally, save room for new William Elliott Whitmore into the new year. His ninth studio album, Silently the Mind Breaks has been announced for a January 26 debut (Whitmore).
- Roadside Graves, "We're Not Here" I Won't Cry Alone (Don Giovanni, Nov 10) D
- Steel Woods, "Border Lord" On Your Time (Woods, 23)
- Blackberry Smoke, "Little Bit Crazy" Be Right Here (3 Legged, Feb 16)
- Mike & the Moonpies, "Rainy Day (live)" Live From the Devil's Backbone (Prairie Rose, 23) D
- Southall, "When You're Around" Southall (Smoklahoma, 23)
- Zach Russell, "Born Again" Where the Flowers Meet the Dew (Carlboro, Dec 1) D
- John Baumann, "Revving Engines River Street" Border Radio (Terlingua Spring, 23)
- Jerry Joseph, "Am I OK" Baby You're the Man Who Would Be King (Cosmo Sex School, 23)
- Alejandro Escovedo, "From Death To Texas" Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions: The Task Has Overwhelmed Us (Glitterhouse, 23) D
- Andrew Bryant, "Gravy" Prodigal (Sentimental Noises, Nov 3)
- Jolie Holland, "Me and My Dream" Haunted Mountain (Cinquefoil, 23)
- Cory Hanson, "Western Cum" single (Drag City, 23) D
- Cactus Lee, "Lowell, Mass" Caravan (Org Music, Oct 20)
- Jeffrey Martin, "Red Station Wagon" Thank God We Left the Garden (Fluff & Gravy, Nov 3)
- Maya de Vitry, "Stacy In Her Wedding Gown" Infinite EP (Mad Maker, Oct 20) D
- Lily & Madeleine, "Good Things" Nite Swim (L&M, 23)
- Midlake, "Roadrunner Blues (ft John Grant)" single (Bella Union, 23) D
- Liza Anne, "Internet Depression" Utopian (AntiFragile, Nov 3)
^ Jason Hawk Harris, "The Abyss" Thin Places (Bloodshot, 23)
- Cruz Contreras, "Flashing Light" Cosmico (Cosmico, 23)
- Maybel, "Matters" Gloam (Idee Fixe, Oct 27)
- John R Miller, "Harper's Ferry Moon" Heat Comes Down (Rounder, 23)
- Lindsay Lou, "Rules" Queen of Time (Kill Rock Stars, 23)
- Aaron Lee Tasjan, "Late Night Grande Hotel" More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith (Rounder, 23)
- Ruston Kelly, "Dream Song (ft Samia)" single (Grand Jury, 23) D
- Dori Freeman, "Wrong Direction" Do You Recall (Blue Hens, Nov 17)
- Brittney Spencer, "Bigger Than a Song" My Stupid Life (Elektra, Jan 19) D
- Margo Price, "Unoriginal Sin (ft Mike Campbell)" Strays II (Loma Vista, Oct 13)
- Tre Burt, "To Be a River" Traffic Fiction (Oh Boy, 23)
- Nikki Lane, "When My Morning Comes Around" single (New West, 23) D
--------------------------
To enjoy our weekly Spotify ROUTES-cast, just open Spotify and search for "routesandbranches" to access this most recent playlist, as well as many others from past months. Or click here for a preview:
No comments:
Post a Comment