Americana & Alt-Counttry thread

[exy]

The Felice Brothers - Yonder Is The Clock (2009)
mp3 VBR~192kpbs | 68MB

The Felice Brothers had a banner year in 2008, ditching their gig as New York City street performers in favor of a record contract, increased distribution, and international tour dates. Released just 13 months after the self-titled Felice Brothers -- an album that served as the band's de facto introduction to the world at large -- Yonder Is the Clock offers another confident, rustic batch of northeastern Americana. Painted with earth tones and dotted with the same American archetypes that previously peppered Music from Big Pink, these songs draw easy parallels to the influences that spawned them, from Bob Dylan's drawl to the Band's rickety harmonies. Yonder Is the Clock certainly makes no attempt to disguise its roots, and while it often lacks the technical skill of Robbie Robertson or the poetic prowess of Dylan, the musicians do shoulder the weight of their predecessors. The Felice Brothers have always prized storytelling above instrumental chops, and Yonder Is the Clock (whose title borrows from Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger) spins its sepia-toned narratives with conviction and authenticity, like a traveling band playing folk ballads by campfire. This is an album that references Depression-era plagues and cold New England winters with a hardened grin, an album in which turn-of-the-century ballplayers like Ty Cobb populate the nostalgic ballads. As with the previous record, Clock flirts with ramshackle country (particularly during the two fowl-related numbers, "Chicken Wire" and "Run Chicken Run") but devotes more of its time to slow, melancholic twang, while producer Jeremy Backofen eschews excessive knob-twiddling for a casual, live-in-the-studio ambience. The best introduction to the Felice Brothers still rests in the band's live show, where even the most leisurely songs brim with rich hootenanny appeal. Nevertheless, Yonder Is the Clock is the band's most nuanced effort to date, an effortless piece of Catskills folk and narrative know-how that shows just how far a band can grow in one year's time.

1. The Big Surprise
2. Penn Station
3. Buried in Ice
4. Chicken Wire
5. Ambulance Man
6. Sailor Song
7. Katie Dear
8. Run Chicken Run
9. All When We Were Young
10. Boy from Lawrence County
11. Memphis Flu
12. Cooperstown
13. Rise and Shine

http://rapidshare.com/files/214873708/fb.rar

[exy]

Alejandro Escovedo - With These Hands (1996)

mp3 VBR~198kpbs | 76MB | 52:15 min. | Americana, Roots Rock

Since he went solo back in the early '90s, ex-True Believer and Rank & File, Alejandro Escovedo has blended the lyricism of Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne with the raw power of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground, often adding traditional elements like Latin rhythms and even chamber music. The result is music with heart, brains and a burning sense of adventure. The downside is that Escovedo's broad musical palette sometimes plays tug of war with the deeply spiritual and emotional resonance of his words.
In 1996, Alejandro Escovedo continued the artistic expansion he'd started in earnest a few years earlier with his post-Rank N File solo albums, writing songs of heartbreak exasperation via crunching, low-slung rockers and rootsy folk ballads.

After recording two superb albums for the tiny independent label Watermelon Records, Alejandro Escovedo moved up, if not to the big leagues, then at least to AAA ball, when he signed with Rykodisc for his third solo set, With These Hands. While Escovedo's arrangements (he calls his band an orchestra without exaggeration) and Turner Stephen Bruton's production on Gravity and Thirteen Years were strikingly ambitious given their tiny budgets, With These Hands found them with a bit more money at their disposal, and if their approach wasn't remarkably different, the results display more polish and audibly greater depth than before, and Escovedo was able to bring along a few celebrity guests -- among them Willie Nelson, Jennifer Warnes, and his cousin Sheila Escovedo (aka Sheila E) -- who add to the music without calling undue attention to themselves. Lyrically, after the deeply (and sometimes painfully) personal material of Gravity and Thirteen Years, With These Hands found Escovedo stepping a bit outside himself to tell stories less obviously based on his own life, though the results are as compelling (and ring as true) as his more autobiographical material, especially the failed rock star's lament of "Pissed Off 2 A.M.," the dead of night heartache of "Sometimes," and "Nickel and a Spoon"'s story of a devastated family. If With These Hands seems less immediately striking than the two albums that preceded it, that's only because it's less surprising -- with his first two solo albums, Alejandro Escovedo announced himself as a world class talent with a singular style, and if With These Hands doesn't break much new ground for him, it shows he's still in full command of his considerable gifts as a musician, and it's an impressive achievement. <AMG>

1. Put You Down
2. Slip
3. Crooked Frame
4. Pissed Off 2am
5. Nickie and a Spoon
6. Little Bottles
7. Sometimes
8. Guilty
9. Tired Skin
10. With These Hands
11. Tugboat

http://rapidshare.com/files/207596854/1996_-_With_These_Hands.rar

[exy]

Freakwater - Thinking of You (2005)

mp3 VBR~192kpbs | 69 MB | 49:03 min.

Despite their alternative rock pedigree and their home on a label better known for experimental music, Freakwater was one of the most traditionally grounded bands on the alternative country scene. Singers/guitarists/songwriters Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Ann Irwin mix original material (with a contemporary lyrical perspective) and traditional covers, all done in a spare, acoustic country-folk style with close vocal harmonies. Their instrumentation often features string band staples like steel guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and dobro, and the strong Appalachian overtones that result have often drawn the duo comparisons to the Carter Family.

End Time was a major step for Freakwater, changing the sound of the band from its strictly acoustic origins without changing the feel of the band. Thinking of You takes another step in that evolution, but manages to achieve the same balancing act: a fuller sound that never abandons the past. This time out, producer Tim Rutili and the band enlist the other members of Califone to add to and expand the Freakwater sound, but it's still the sharp songwriting and vocal harmonies that carry the tunes. Freakwater albums are still the domain of the lovelorn and downtrodden, where alcohol is just about the only solace and circumstances are met with a weary acceptance just shy of hope and a dash of gallows humor, like in "Loserville": "where the bourbon flows like a river, so deep and still" or the "friend who tried to give me the good news, like solace candy found in pills and booze." Tales of loss and loneliness are the order of the day, perhaps most poignantly on "Cathy Ann," which isn't about Catherine Ann Irwin at all, but about one of Woody Guthrie's children who died following a fire caused by an electrical short. And unlike folks like the Carter Family, who turned to the Lord in times of need, religion offers no redemption in Freakwater songs ("Hi ho Silver, high on pills/Use your hands and tell me how I feel/Higher power, higher hand of mine/Tell me why your god is so divine"). There's even a nod toward the political (something new for Freakwater) in "Buckets of Oil," "where the winners and the losers, from sea to shining sea, have been bought and sold and most often have for free." The talented men of Califone provide sympathetic backing, adding everything from distorted bass clarinet to pump organ and tremolo guitar, but never get in the way of the songs. There's even some buzzing feedback guitar in one spot (the likes of which have never been heard on a Freakwater album before), but again, it never intrudes or takes the spotlight from the vocals or the song itself. The focus, however, is always those gorgeous aching vocal harmonies and the great set of all-original tunes. Freakwater might often sound like a band from another time, but their attitude couldn't be more contemporary, a dichotomy nicely summed up by the title and cover art, with "Thinking of You..." accompanied by a flaming bouquet of red roses. It's another excellent offering from Freakwater. -- AMG

1. Right Brothers
2. Cricket versus Ant
3. Buckets of Oil
4. So Strange
5. Loserville
6. Cathy Ann
7. Double Clutch
8. Sap
9. Jack the Knife
10. Jewel
11. Upside Down
12. Hi Ho Silver

http://rapidshare.com/files/258689106/FREAKWATER_-_2005_Thinking_Of_You.rar

pass: filmuzika

[exy]

Clarence Bucaro - 'Til Spring (2009)

mp3 320kpbs | 101MB | 43:35 min.

A great album to sit around and listen to when you need to slow down and just think. Soulful modern country meets rootsy classic rock with a hint of that choir feel (could be the organ?). His country-tinged guitar and haunting, echoing vocals are still lingering in my head.
----
Produced by Tom Schick (Norah Jones, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright) and Bucaro over two intensive days in New York City, the album reveals a remarkably genuine and expressive young artist who seamlessly intertwines the introspective singer/songwriter tradition of Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and the acoustic Neil Young with the silky soul of Curtis Mayfield and pre-What's Goin' On Marvin Gaye. The New York Times compared Bucaro's sound to "late-1960s Van Morrison"; that, you'll recall, is Astral Weeks territory.
These 10 songs traverse the emotional gauntlet from despair to renewal, as the protagonist of this real-life tale is buffeted by the bitter final stages of one relationship and enflamed by the first tantalizing blush of the next in a song cycle laced through with hard-earned insight and emotional resonance. Written with poetic simplicity and sung with soulful understatement, 'Til Spring marks the arrival of a gifted artist who has found his own unique voice through a process of disappointment and self-doubt on the way to an abiding self-belief, the struggle bringing a vital – and highly relatable – dimension of psychological nuance to Bucaro's songs and vocals.
----
"'Til Spring" features an outstanding cast of allstar musicians including Neal Casal (The Cardinals), Anders Osborne, Konrad Meissner, Kirk Fletcher (Fabulous Thunderbirds), Glenn Patscha (Olabelle) and George Rush (Hem). Produced by Tom Schick (Norah Jones, Ryan Adams) and Clarence Bucaro.

1. ‘Til a Spring Wind Blows Again
2. When Man Plays God
3. Renew My Faith In You
4. Back in the World
5. On the Map
6. Caught in a Dream Turning Real
7. Take My Love
8. Tirelessly Blue
9. Standing on Old Grounds
10. For When you Arrived

http://rapidshare.com/files/240509946/CB_TS.zip

[exy]

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (OST) [2007 - Deluxe Edition]

mp3 256kpbs | 153Mb | 83:02 min. | Film Music, Traditional Country, Rock & Roll, Comedy Rock

It goes without saying that a music movie lives or dies by its music, but it's particularly true with pop music parodies. If the music doesn't hit the right notes -- if it doesn't feel like the period it's meant to evoke, if the humor is either too broad or dry -- the movie crumbles around it, to say nothing of the soundtrack, which will be hard-pressed to stand on its own as an album. The gold standard for rock comedies is This Is Spinal Tap, as the music felt authentic, and Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean proved that lightning could strike twice with their folk music saga A Mighty Wind. The soundtrack to the John C. Reilly-starring Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story belongs in such rarefied company. Like Spinal Tap, Walk Hard sets the bar high by attempting to create many sounds from the past, but where the Tap pretty much confined themselves to a bit of Merseybeat and psychedelia before settling into a metallic groove, the whole point of Walk Hard is to trace Reilly's Cox character -- based chiefly on Johnny Cash -- through the ins and outs of the '50s, '60s, and '70s, so there are more sounds here and thereby more pitfalls, all of which the music-makers miraculously manage to avoid. This is especially remarkable because the 15 songs on Walk Hard evoke many different artists: there is naturally Johnny Cash on the title track, the mariachi-flared "Guilty as Charged," and the cheerfully vulgar Johnny and June take-off "Let's Duet," but there are also two takes on Elvis ("[Mama] You Got to Love Your Negro Man," "[I Hate You] Big Daddy"), three on Dylan, Roy Orbison on the grandly melodramatic "A Life Without You (Is No Life at All)," and the Everly Brothers-styled "Darling," but this also leaves old-time rock & roll behind with the Beach Boys psych-pop pastiche "Black Sheep" and, bizarrely, a disco spin on David Bowie's "Starman." That's a lot of ground to cover, but the songs work as music while still being funny. Sometimes, the jokes are big and obvious -- the double entendres on "Let's Duet" are hardly subtle -- but sometimes the humor is a bit sly, as on "Royal Jelly," which nails Dylan's stream-of-conscious romantic writing. Of course, that song wouldn't work if it weren't for John C. Reilly's delivery; he mimics the particulars of Dylan's cadence with the grace of Cate Blanchett, and his fine ear for detail is evident throughout this soundtrack, as he negotiates the twists and turns of the music with ease. Such a performance would be admirable if the songs weren't good, but since they're very fine, his singing helps turn Walk Hard into that rarest of things: a parody album that's almost as addictive as the real deal. <AMG>

http://rapidshare.com/files/213303539/hard.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/213303047/hard.part2.rar

[Tabitha]

Thank You

[exy]

Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger (2007)

mp3 192kpbs | 55MB | 42:33 min.

Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Raised by his mother after his father abandoned the family, Adams dropped out of school at age 16 and performed with several local bands before moving to Raleigh and forming the band Whiskeytown. Three albums and five years later, Adams went solo, releasing Heartbreaker in 2000. A longtime resident of New York City, Adams is probably best known for his song "New York, New York", which appeared on his 2001 release Gold. He has since released five more solo albums and three albums with his band, The Cardinals.

Easy Tiger is Ryan Adams' ninth studio album, released on June 26, 2007. Although attributed solely to Adams, the album features The Cardinals as his backing band. In an interview, Adams states that the album contains "very, very simple, very easy songs that, in my opinion, were written on the periphery of some more complex work.
The album debuted at #7 on the Billboard 200 with Adams highest first-week sales (61,000) and has sold 217,000 copies in the U.S. as of September 2008 and 450,000 worldwide. Furthermore, the album debuted in Canada, Estonia and Switzerland where Ryan Adams has never had an album chart before. "Halloweenhead" was #45 in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007. <Wikipedia>

1. "Goodnight Rose" 3:20
2. "Two" 2:39
3. "Everybody Knows" 2:26
4. "Halloweenhead" Adams 3:23
5. "Oh My God, Whatever, Etc." 2:33
6. "Tears of Gold" 2:55
7. "The Sun Also Sets" 4:11
8. "Off Broadway" 2:32
9. "Pearls on a String" 2:25
10. "Rip Off" 3:12
11. "Two Hearts" 3:03
12. "These Girls" 2:52
13. "I Taught Myself How to Grow Old" 3:21

http://rapidshare.com/files/211197760/Ryan_Adams_-_Easy_Tiger.zip

[exy]

The Court and Spark - Witch Season (2004)

mp3 VBR~242kpbs | 70MB | 41:11 min.

By tightening up some of the watery qualities that superbly defined the sound of their 2001 full-length Bless You, the Court & Spark immediately open up some space for new textures to lead off their third and most enriched long-player yet, Witch Season. The band has always had an experimental edge and their trials have always worn the tags of meticulousness necessary to keep the meat of the songs in context, but the flag the Court & Spark have unfurled in the mighty and complex opening track eclipses any benchmark in the band's previous history. Titled "Suffolk Down Upon the Night," the song drunkenly staggers through a heavily treated opening, but only for a few seconds, before a horn section augmented by bells, pedal steel, and the rest of the band kicks the album off into sultry momentum. Co-producer and regular collaborator Scott Solter brought a little bit of crispness from M.C. Taylor's voice this time around that, combined with the slight elevation in Taylor's forcefulness, lifts it more to the surface than on previous recordings without managing to sacrifice the warmth that makes Taylor's voice so comfortable and unique. Soulter also brought his penchant for field recordings and tape manipulations to the table, an idea likely inspired by the 2001 collaboration between him and Taylor called Boxharp. As noted, the content of Witch Season is complex, but it should be stated that it is still very accessible, especially on songs like the exuberant and poppy "Out on the Water," another song adorned with horns, and the lovely title track, which like the majority of the tracks, features Tom Heyman's pedal steel to fantastic effect. With Witch Season being their second exceptional LP, the Court & Spark should have no problems convincing any skeptics that they are an extremely thoughtful band worthy of considerable attention. -- AMG

1. Suffolk Down Upon the Night
2. Out on the Water
3. Denver Annie
4. Steeplechasing
5. Sundowner, You
6. St. John the Evangelist
7. Witch Season
8. Wandering Tattler
9. With the Horseshoe King
10. Hallelujah I
11. Swimming Endlessly
12. Titov Sang the Blues

http://rapidshare.com/files/291568423/The_Court_and_Spark-Witch_Season.rar

[bmsjunkmail]

This is great! Thanks!

[exy]

Drag the River - Bad at Breaking Up (2009)

mp3 VBR~192kpbs | 64MB

Based out of Fort Collins, CO, Drag the River was a musical outlet for some of punk's seasoned veterans. All frontman Chad Price hooked up with Armchair Martian's Jon Snodgrass and Paul Rucker and the Nobodys' J.J. Nobody and formed Drag the River for a country-rock fix in 1996. Hobo's Demo's was released in mid-2000 (reissued by Suburban Home in late 2006) and captured Drag the River's rough-cut rock & roll woven around lyrical introspections. Pedal steel guitarist Zach Boddicker was added to the fray by 2001 and Drag the River prepped for a sophomore effort while playing gigs out west. Closed, which shaped into a booze-soaked storybook of heartbreak and loneliness, was issued on Upland in spring 2002. Recorded that July, Live at the Starlight was also released by the year's end through Mars Motors Records. Chicken Demos appeared in May 2004, comprised mostly of songs that didn't make the cut for Hobo's Demo's, before the Hey Buddies... EP followed late that fall. Boddicker then exited to return to school, and Chad Rex filled in from time to time before Hot Rod Circuit's Casey Prestwood took over steel duties. Rucker exited in late 2005 and was replaced on drums by Dave Barker (ex-Pinhead Circus). Drag the River then released It's Crazy in June 2006, also contributing the track "Portland" to October's Replacements tribute album, We'll Inherit the Earth. They closed out the year on tour dates with Lucero and spent the first part of 2007 on the road opening for Rocky Votolato. The latter tour saw Snodgrass dropping out of the band's ranks midway through (he simply left the tour, not the band), which left fans asking questions. Things didn't really get better for Drag the River, and in May members announced they were amicably going their separate ways.
2009 Drag the River have compiled 7" only tracks, B-sides, their tracks from their split LP with the Dents, and more to make up the 20 song collection CD, Bad at Breaking Up. -- AMG

1. Having a Party
2. Jeff Black Song
3. Re-Rangement
4. I Remember Now
5. Sea Miner
6. Jake Song Too
7. Return
8. Caleb’s Grave
9. Best & Worst
10. R.I.A.
11. A Way With Women
12. This Star
13. J.J.’s Drivin’
14. Dirty Lips
15. Beautiful & Damned
16. Get Over It Or Get It Over With
17. Crawling
18. Last One Standing
19. Trainwreck
20. A Shame

http://rapidshare.com/files/304691241/Drag_The_River_-_Bad_At_Breaking_Up.rar